


No Man Is An Island

by strawberrysunflower



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2019, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Bartender Phil, Fluff, M/M, References to Depression, Strangers to Lovers, farmer Phil, writer Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrysunflower/pseuds/strawberrysunflower
Summary: While drunk and desperate to get away from the creatively-stifling hubbub of London, Dan rents a farmhouse on the Isle of Man for four weeks to finish writing his latest book. All he wants is silence. Peace. Solitude.Then he meets Phil, the farm owners’ dorky, clumsy,stupidlyhandsome son.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 195
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fanfic for the phandom so I hope you like it :)

The rain was to be expected. Getting lost in the arse-end of nowhere seems about right too. The sheep, however, are a total surprise. 

There’s thirty or so of them making their slow amble further up the road, leaving Dan with no choice but to stare at their arses through hazy spatters of rain and wait. It's a good job he remembers some things about his driving lessons even after all these years - namely, how to do an emergency stop after careering around the corner of a country lane before knocking down an entire flock like a set of very woolly bowling pins. 

“Fuck,” Dan says out loud. His heart is still thumping in his chest. ABBA's greatest hits are still blaring through the speakers (the only CD Dan could find, tucked away in the glovebox, which nearly made him turn the car around and demand another one). Rain is still pelting down, and the window wipers are still screeching under the effort of keeping up. And those bloody sheep are _still_ in the bloody road. 

“Fuck!”

Dan pips the horn. The sheep at the back of the crowd jump and scatter. It makes Dan chuckle at least; today has been a bit of a disaster, so he could do with a laugh. Between accidentally spraying deodorant into his eye at eight this morning, misjudging the length of the queue at McDonalds so that he nearly missed his flight out of Gatwick, and being stuck behind the world’s loudest toddlers on the plane, Dan feels about ready to hide himself away for a month. Which is, in fact, the plan. Four weeks in a cottage on the Isle of Man may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but Dan genuinely cannot wait for a bit of peace and quiet.

The sheep bleat in unison, a rumbling noise that sets Dan’s teeth on edge. Maybe he’ll get less of that than he thought.

It's then he notices a figure, tall and lanky, strolling along beside them in the distance. Dan huffs and winds his window down to stick his head out, cup his hands around his mouth and yell, “Oi!” 

The man turns, pushing dark, wet hair off his forehead and squinting at him through the rain. He’s young, not much older than Dan by the looks of it, and devoid of a stereotypical weather-worn ruddy face or a flat cap and Barbour jacket. The man lopes towards the car as Dan beckons him over, a muddy Border Collie following closely at his heels.

“Are these your sheep?” Dan calls when he’s close enough to be heard over the buffeting winds. The man frowns, looks at them over his shoulder.

“What, those ones?”

Dan resists the urge to roll his eyes. “ _Yes_ , those ones.”

“Never seen them before in my life.” 

“You-” Dan blinks. The man’s face splits into a wide grin, the tip of his tongue trapped between his teeth. Ah. Island humour. 

“I’m joking. Sorry, I’m just bringing them back up to the farm, I didn’t realise anyone would be coming along this road. I’ll get them out of your way in two shakes of a- well.” He laughs, pleased with himself, and moves as if to stride back over to the sheep still making their sombre plod up the dirt road.

“Wait, wait - is that…” Dan turns to his rucksack on the passenger seat, jimmies open the zip and tugs out a slightly crumpled piece of paper with his booking confirmation. “Grianane Farm?”

“Yeah! Oh, are you the guy staying in the cottage?” the man asks with a delighted smile, seemingly unbothered that this whole conversation is taking place while they’re being pelted with icy sheets of rain. 

“Uh, yeah. Dan,” Dan offers with an awkward semi-aborted salute. 

“I’m Phil. Hey, if you give me ten minutes, I’ll give you directions. There’s a turning that’s a bit of a ballache to find if you don’t know the area.” 

So Dan waits. There’s not much else he can do - there doesn’t seem to be any other way into the farm, and there’s no way he’s getting out and walking. Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s warbling tones keep him company as he watches Phil and the dog round up the sheep and send them through a gate into a large, boggy field. By the time Phil is finished, he’s absolutely sodden through, and Dan shivers even though the heating in the car is up as far as it’ll go. 

Phil squelches his way over to the passengers side and gives the window a polite tap with his knuckles before opening the door, as if Dan would somehow forget he’s there and be startled by his presence. “Sorted. Have you got a map with you? I’d say try getting it up on your phone but the signal out here is non-existent.”

“Why don’t you just get in and show me where to go?”

Phil blinks at him, eyes wide and startlingly blue. “Are you sure? I’m a bit of a mess, and the dog’ll have to come with me.”

Dan snorts and shrugs. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure this car’s gone through worse.”

Phil gives him a small, grateful smile, and both he and the dog clamber in, bringing with them rainwater and mud and the inherent smell of the outdoors. As Dan starts the car up again, Phil turns around to the Border Collie who’s stood on the back seats and panting heavily as he watches the sheep out of the window.

“Lie down, Crash, you daft dog.”

Dan grins and glances at Phil out of the corner of his eye. “Crash?”

“Oh yeah. My idea - it suits him because he can be a bit mental. My mum hates taking him to the vets, though, because his full Christian name is Crash Bandicoot Lester.”

Dan laughs loudly, caught off guard by this strange man and his even stranger sense of humour. “Seriously?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Wow. I didn’t think farmers were big fans of nineties Playstation games.”

Phil laughs now, a sweet, chirruping sound. “No? Ah well, we’ve all got to have a hobby.”

They lapse into silence as Dan follows the country lane at a much more reasonable speed. Dan takes the lull in conversation to get a proper look at Phil. He doesn’t look anything like he belongs on the island, let alone works on a farm. He’s pale, despite pink blotches from the cold forming across his high cheekbones. His nose juts out in a way that Dan finds fascinating, and his slowly-drying hair is an inky black colour with just a smattering of stubborn grey bits at his temple. He’s good-looking, Dan decides, _annoyingly_ so. Dan travelled across the Irish Sea to get away from good-looking _anythings_ , not stumble upon them the very minute he got off the plane. 

Phil catches him staring. His lips twitch, embarrassed, and his hand comes up again to push his hair back off his forehead. Soft, delicate hands, long fingers. Definitely not rough farmers' hands.

“It’s just up here, there’s a turning on your left that you need to take. There’s usually a sign but it blew away some time over Christmas and Mum hasn’t gotten around to replacing it yet.” Phil grins at that. “Mum's absolutely buzzing, you know. She hasn't had guests in two months.”

“Oh. Well, I hope I don’t disappoint her,” Dan says, fiddling with the radio dial. ‘Super Trooper’ fades in and out.

“I don’t think you could. Unless you tell her you don’t like her cooking.”

Dan stares at him, startled. “She’s not going to cook for me, is she?”

Phil laughs. “She’ll try. But the cottage is all self-catering, there’s a little kitchenette if you need it. Or there are plenty of places in town that do food. Or you could go anywhere across the island - did you know it only takes an hour to drive from the north to the south?”

“Shit, really? It takes me an hour to get from my flat to the other side of the Thames.”

The farmhouse looms before them, a large white building with two chimneys rising either side like a pair of horns. It looks impressive set beside a backdrop of murky clouds and rolling green hills. Dan’s not sure why he chose the Isle of Man as his place of creative refuge; he remembers one night over the Christmas period after downing a whole bottle of red wine, sat on his living room floor with his duvet wrapped around his shoulders, frantically Googling the quietest spots in the British Isles. Somehow that led to an Airbnb recommendation of Grianane Farm, and the promise of no noise, no distractions, and no people, should he want that. And he does. Oh God, he does. 

They stop in front of a crumbling stone wall and get out. Phil stretches his long limbs, then nods towards the house. “I’ll go let Mum know you’re here. You might as well come with me, no doubt she’ll want to meet you and it keeps you out of the rain.”

The house is a bit like a reverse TARDIS - huge from the outside, but positively hobbit sized past the main threshold. Dan feels silly having to stoop under a low beam in the porch, until Phil scrapes his mud-encrusted wellies on the mat and does a full head-and-shoulders duck to get through the door into the living room. 

“Mum!” Phil hollers. “Dan’s here to check into the cottage.”

“Get those filthy clothes off my nice clean floor, Philip Michael Lester!” a frustrated voice calls back as a woman - Kath, a Superhost with a unique stay, according to Airbnb - bustles in through a door at the other end of the lounge. She shoots him a glare so powerful he instantly disappears to do exactly as he’s told (Dan’s relieved to have had the foresight to toe off his trainers and leave them by the front door). Crash goes bounding off and rushes behind her into what Dan assumes is the kitchen, judging by the amazing smell of fresh bread and brazing meat that wafts out of the room.

“Crash, you _silly_ boy!” Kath groans, staring at the trail of muddy paw prints over the parquet. She sighs and finally looks up at Dan, offering him a tired smile. “I’m so sorry, Daniel, it’s not always like this.”

“It is,” Phil counters with a smirk. He lopes across the room, now devoid of wellies and parka coat, and drops a kiss onto the top of his mother’s head before side-stepping her into the kitchen. Kath rolls her eyes but looks amused all the same.

“You’re with us for a month, are you, darling?”

“That’s right,” Dan replies, shifting from socked foot to socked foot. “Needed to get out of London for a bit.”

He doesn’t expand on the real reason - a terrible case of writer’s block and a looming deadline for his latest book draft - but luckily Kath doesn’t push it. 

“Well, it's wonderful to have you to stay, my love. It always gets so quiet around this time of year. But there's still plenty to do on the island, and I've left some travel guides in the lounge for you to have a look over,” Kath tells him, her voice warm with a soft Lancashire lilt. “You’re welcome to come and go as you please, there are enough amenities in the cottage to keep you going. But if you need anything - directions, fresh towels or bed sheets, just some company to have your tea with - Nigel and I are right here so don’t be a stranger. Ooh, we have a roast on Sunday that you’re more than welcome to join us for, I always end up making too much food anyway.”

Dan lets out a small awkward laugh and rubs at the back of his neck. “Thank you very much. I might just take you up on that.”

He shall not be taking her up on that. 

Kath rummages around in an old wooden cabinet, a perplexed frown deepening on her face the longer it takes for her to find whatever it is she’s searching for.

“Now where the heck-?”

“Looking for these?” Phil asks breezily, popping his head around the kitchen door and holding up a set of keys. “They were on the dining table.”

“I swear you and your father move things around just to confuse me,” Kath grumbles, swatting at her son’s arm. “I tell you what, as you’re already soaked through, be a love and take Daniel up to the cottage, would you? Make sure you show him where everything is.”

“So long as you put the kettle on for when I get back,” Phil replies cheerfully, twirling the keys around his long fingers. “Come on then, Danny boy, let me accompany you to the château.”

He’s a funny one, Phil. Smiley and sunshiny and a bit clumsy, like a Golden Retriever mixed with a newborn deer. He stumbles while trying to shove his wellies back on, knocking his head against the wooden beam, and only acknowledges it with a quick, “ow!” Dan notices his mismatched patterned socks, one orange and stamped with foxes, the other blue and green stripes. Phil wiggles his toes when he spots Dan looking. 

“I’ve got another pair just like this, y’know.”

“Have you ever considered going into stand up comedy? I bet the Apollo is just dying to book you,” Dan deadpans. Phil laughs loudly, head thrown back and hand clamped to the front of his navy cable knit jumper. _Goddammit_ , he really is cute. 

They traipes back over to Dan’s rented Ford Fiesta. The rain has let up by now, thankfully, although thick grey clouds still roll overhead. Dan jerks his thumb back towards the farmhouse. “So do you live here too?”

Phil shakes his head. “I've got a place in town, I only come down here to work on my dad’s farm. Oh, and for Mum's Sunday roast. Which I'm sure you've been invited to.”

“She did say something about that, yeah.”

“You should come. It’ll be nice to have a conversation with someone under the age of fifty, for once,” Phil says. He whistles along to ‘Money, Money, Money’ before letting out an amused hum. “Big fan?”

“Not really. I can’t get the radio to work and this is the only CD I found in the car.” 

“Ah.” 

They arrive at the cottage. It’s a quaint grey-stone building, small and rustic and set far enough back into the lush green countryside that Dan can already feel tension leaving his body. Phil gives him the grand tour: the outdoor deck, complete with chairs and table (“not much good in mid-February, though, you’ll be blown out to sea.”); the low-ceilinged living room, with its plush sofa and old tube television (“there’s no Netflix, but there _is_ a DVD player and we’ve got the entire box set of _Dinnerladies_ somewhere.”); the kitchenette, where a hamper of local produce sits proudly on the round dining table (“if you don’t want the marmalade, let me know, because I would genuinely smear it over my body and lick it off, I love it that much.”); and finally, the cosy bedroom with the stove fire already on full blast (“fuck, Dad’ll have a field day if he knows this has been on with nobody in the house.”)

“Well, that’s everything,” Phil concludes, gesturing around the bedroom. “I know it’s all a bit dated, but-”

“It’s perfect,” Dan whispers as he drops his bags and does a full revolution on the spot. The tiny window looks out onto the fields, where the sheep are grazing peacefully after their intense morning walk. When he turns back, Phil is grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m glad you like it. Listen, I need to pop back, there’s a bit more I’ve got to help Dad with before I go home. But if you ever get bored and want someone to show you around the Isle, just let me know.”

“I will. Thanks, Phil,” Dan says. He means it too; he supposes he could break his intended month-long stint of being a hermit to hang out with handsome, dorky farmers. 

\---

Dan emerges from the tendrils of sleep the next morning, rolls over to check his phone and finds it’s gone eleven. Usually when he sleeps in this late, he feels groggy and guilty and it sets him off kilter for the rest of the day. This time, however, he’s more well rested than he’s been in years. The bed is one of those old farmhouse affairs, with a thick eiderdown duvet and a mattress so deep Dan is in danger of getting sucked into it, _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ style. And Dan would welcome it, if he’s being honest - there’s very little motivation for actually getting up today. 

Rain patters softly against the window, as it has done all night, and there’s the distant bleating of sheep that Dan has actually come to tolerate. He could stay here all day, really, curled up like a warm sausage roll with nothing to do and nobody to answer to. 

His stomach chooses this moment to growl demandingly. Cursing his physical form and its bodily needs, Dan slips out of bed in search of food. 

Breakfast consists of two thick doorstop slices of homemade bread slathered with marmalade (Phil was right, it _is_ good enough to smear over one's body and lick off), and a cup of camomile tea. Most days he usually has a black coffee and a Belvita, but this seems like the sort of place to start drinking flowery teas and consuming an ungodly amount of locally made fruit preserves. Dan cradles the steaming mug between his hands, wriggles his bare toes against the cold stone floor, and peers out of the kitchen window. 

It’s another overcast day, one made for thick woollen jumpers and quiet music and baths that are 80% bubble (actually, that might be Dan’s schedule sorted). The sheep are scattered across the field, grey and bedraggled, their red spray-paint markings a shock of colour against the otherwise muted scene. Crash darts around with abandon, and there’s Phil, this time in a sensible blue raincoat, trailing after a shorter, older man that Dan can only assume is the Lester patriarch. Phil’s hands are shoved deep into his pockets and his shoulders are hunched up by his ears against the seemingly never-ending rainfall. It looks bloody miserable.

Dan drains the last of his tea and places the mug in the sink with a sigh. As tempting as it is to stand around and stare at Phil all day, continuous navel-gazing is what got him here in the first place. If four weeks in the middle of sodding nowhere isn’t enough to make him crank out the next best-selling depressed queer thinkpiece, he’s not entirely sure what is. 

So, after changing into fresh sweatpants and his thickest hoodie, Dan settles down with his laptop to finally write. He’s about a quarter of the way through his manuscript; this’ll be his third publication, after his snappy, sassy book about being a homosexual in a big city, and his snappy, sassy - yet heartfelt - book about living with depression in a big city. They’ve both done numbers, surprising amounts considering nearly every other Millenial in his position has had a stab at writing the exact same thing. His agent wants him to go for the hatrick with something raw and gritty this time. Maybe something about his childhood, she’d suggested, because nothing says ‘raw and gritty’ like someone spilling their daddy issues and unhealthy juvenile coping mechanisms across 200 pages. 

Dan sighs, pushing his chair away from the desk and massaging his forehead. He’s already got a headache and he’s not even written a single word yet.

He doesn’t want to hurt his mum. That’s the big one. He doesn’t want to hurt his dad either, really, even though he’s fairly certain his dad has never read one of his books. But at the same time, it’s hard to write with softness about a childhood that was decidedly hard and spiky. Dan looks back on it all less with rose-tinted glasses, more with Angry Black Glasses of Doom and Despair. His therapist thinks the book is a good idea: he might be able to exorcise some of his demons if he purges them onto paper. His agent thinks it’s a good idea too: they’ll both probably make a lot of money, as misery loves company and Dan’s sarcastic writing style. Both good selling points, but still Dan is not yet convinced. 

He manages three lines, deletes one of them, then calls it a day and runs a bath instead.

After soaking himself in lucious, lavender-scented bubbles for an hour and a half, watching three episodes of _Dinnerladies_ , going for a nap, then watching a further two episodes of _Dinnerladies_ , Dan’s feeling the beginning itches of cabin fever. The rain's stopped, so he takes the plunge and heads into town in search of sustenance and maybe a glass of wine or two. 

Even without the Isle’s semi-permanent drizzle, the thirty minutes it takes Dan to walk into Peel is still a harrowing experience. There’s a sharp, bitter wind blowing off the western coast that makes his jaw ache and the tip of his nose burn from the cold. Dan burrows his face into his scarf and walks almost diagonally against the gale, but in the end he has to tap out and duck into the nearest pub he comes across. 

The Peacock: big and white and crumbling around the edges, overlooking the harbour like a tired, old sea captain. On the inside it’s cluttered and cockeyed, with low Tudor beams and an unfortunate case of subsidence so all the patrons have to clutch their pints tightly lest they slide right off the table. Not Dan’s typical haunt, he must admit; he’s more likely to find himself in minimalist wine bars in Kensington, or smoky clubs in Shoreditch, or somebody’s artsy studio flat in Canary Wharf these days. Not through choice, mind - his ideal Saturday night would be a big fuck-off Indian takeaway and as many straight hours of video games as his brain could cope with - but his agent is into networking at the moment. The Peacock, however, is as spit-and-sawdust as they come. Three separate tables of balding, burly men have given him distrustful glares already.

Dan could leave, find somewhere else. He could cut his losses entirely and head straight back to the cottage. He spotted a pizza place on the walk down here, and there’s a Co-op nearby where he could pick up a cheap bottle of rosé. And yet, just as he’s about to turn tail and run, he hears a voice call across the pub: “Dan!”

This is followed by an immediate shattering of glass and a fond jeer from nearby patrons.

Dan blinks, flummoxed, and stumbles towards the bar. Phil is on the other side, bent over a dustpan and brush as he sweeps the last of what used to be a full bottle of Magners off the floor. When he stands back up he’s beaming, as though he hasn’t just lost four quid’s worth of stock in his excitement at spotting a fellow under-60 year old. 

“What are you doing here, man?” Phil asks as he tips the glass and sticky apple cider into a nearby bin. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing to see you, but I wouldn’t have pegged this as your type of place.”

“No?” Dan asks with a laugh, the tension in his body receding at the sight of Phil’s friendly, familiar face. “What gives that away? Surely not the tight jeans or the fetching tiny hoop earring?” 

“It was the obvious hair product and nice aftershave that clinched it.”

Dan’s cheeks prickle with heat at that, whether through the off-hand compliment or the sudden transition from bitter cold to blazing warmth, he’s not certain. 

“I’m starving,” he explains, “and I hate cooking at home so I’m not about to do it while I’m on holiday.”

“Fair enough.” Phil slides a paper menu from a basket at the far end of the bar to him, and nods at a small round table in the corner of the room. “Go and sit yourself down, get warmed up, and I’ll come over once I’ve seen to these people. D’you want a drink?”

“Is it really bad if I order an entire bottle of wine for myself?”

Phil laughs. “Only if you puke afterwards, because I’m the one that’s got to clean it up.”

“Yikes. Duly noted.”

Dan’s little spot is perfect because a) it’s tucked far enough away that nobody acknowledges his presence, b) it’s right next to the large fireplace and the roaring fire and c) he has a direct view of Phil pottering behind the bar. Somehow, if possible, he looks out of place here too. Phil is chatty and jovial enough to the hoards of middle-aged men as he pours pint after pint of Stella and Carling, but there’s something about his nervous laughter and his fumbling movements that make Dan feel uncomfortable just watching him. 

At one stage, Phil carries a full tray of drinks over to a table, trips on seemingly nothing, and almost upends everything over the silver-coiffed old dear in front of him. Dan has to look away when the babbling apologies start. The second-hand cringe making all his muscles tighten is beginning to hurt.

There are some framed photos on the wall nearest Dan’s head that he focuses on instead. Most of them are black and white snapshots of Peel in the past: old fishermen in the harbour, ladies in long skirts and aprons chatting outside their homes. There’s one in colour, however, accompanied with a newspaper clipping dated a decade ago. _‘Meet the Peacock’s newest landlady!’_ , the headline proclaims, and in the picture a small woman in a stripy woollen hat beams at the camera from outside the pub. Next to her is a girl who could only be eighteen or nineteen, and on her other side is Phil. 

Fuck. Phil from 2009 was _fit_. 

He had the whole uncomfortable emo thing going on, his hair a wild black bird's nest swooped to one side, his shoulders slouched and hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets. A bubble of laughter erupts from Dan’s throat before he can stop it, and he touches one gentle finger to Phil’s tiny, printed face.

“Ugh. I forgot that photo was over here. This is embarrassing.”

The real Phil stands over him, smirking despite the humiliation. At some stage the long fringe was replaced with short sides and a quiff, the plaid button-up with a sensible speckled jumper. He’s wearing glasses tonight, Buddy Holly style, and there are more laughter lines around his eyes and his mouth compared to his younger self. _Still fit_. Dan glances back at the picture and shakes his head.

“No, don’t, you look great. Didn’t we all have an emo phase in the late 2000s that we’d rather forget? I know I did.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. I took a pair of GHDs to my hair every morning without fail. Skinny jeans worn down round my arse, Vans written all over in Sharpie-”

“Studded belts, that one experiment with your mum’s eyeliner that you never talk about.”

“Exactly! It’s like we were the same person,” Dan grins. “Trust me, mate, you would have been just my type.”

A brilliant pink tinge appears suddenly across Phil’s cheeks, and he clears his throat and shuffles the menu in his hands. “Well. Uh. Thank you. Have you decided what you want to eat?”

\---

For a pub so packed with people when Dan first walked in, the numbers dwindle down as the night goes on until eventually it’s just Dan, Phil and a group of older men vehemently arguing about the football scores. 

“Last orders, guys, d'you anything else?” Phil calls out to them over the din of whether Salah’s winning goal was actually offside or not. They grumble their negatives back at him, down the rest of their pints and shuffle out of the front door into the bitter night, throwing a goodbye at Phil over their shoulders. Finally, it’s just the two of them. Dan relocated to an empty bar stool after inhaling the best vegan curry he’d ever tasted, and made his way through his bottle of Pinot Grigio Blush while chatting to Phil in between customers.

“Is that last orders for me too?” Dan asks, swirling the dregs of his wine in his glass. Phil rolls his eyes playfully and reaches into the fridge to get a new bottle of Lacento. He tops off Dan’s glass, then grabs a fresh one for himself and pours out a rather generous serving.

“Drinking on the job? That can’t be legal,” Dan smirks around his sip. Phil shrugs and necks back a large mouthful.

“I’ve been on my feet since six this morning, leave me alone.”

“Six? Fuck. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Hm?” Phil slides his fingers under his glasses and rubs tiredly at his eyes. It’s just gone eleven now - that’s fifteen hours of work Phil’s done today. It’s beginning to show in the way his shoulders sag and his voice loses that chirpy customer-service lilt to become deep and sleepy. Dan leans across the bar and taps his wrist, bringing him back. Phil drops his hand and smiles dopily. “Sorry, miles away. Do what?”

“How you do so _much_. I saw you at the farm this morning with your dad, and now you’re doing close-down shifts at your local. Please tell me this isn’t how you spend every day.”

“Not _every_ day,” Phil replies unconvincingly. “I get Sundays off. And Wednesday nights.”

“Oh wow. I take it back, you're a proper lazy bitch.”

Phil hums, amused, and places a dramatic hand to his chest. “God, I wish I was. I know deep down I have the heart and soul of a lazy bitch.”

“Thought as much. Us lazy bitches _can_ seek out each other.”

“Lazy-bitch-dar,” Phil says, a ridiculous pleased smile pulling at his lips. Dan's eye roll is instantaneous and involuntary, as is his scoffing laugh. 

“That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.”

“Stick with me, mate, I guarantee you'll hear worse over the next few weeks.”

They natter as Phil goes through his close-down routine: wash the drip trays, mop the floor, take out the bins, wipe down the tables, stop for another small glass of wine. The kitchen staff say goodbye just as Dan is arguing with him about which _Star Wars_ trilogy is superior, and while Phil counts today's earnings (including the £20 he threw in for his pilfered wine) Dan regales him with the time he sold an axe to a small child in his first Saturday job. 

Dan feels like he hasn't drawn breath all night. He can't remember the last time he had this much to say to anyone - unless he's paying them to listen to him - least of all to a relative stranger. But Phil is just so easy to talk to. He asks questions rather than interrupting with his own stories; he giggles often at Dan's dry wit, covering his mouth with his hand like he's trying to hide it; he watches Dan attentively with those gorgeous baby blues, even if it means he becomes so distracted he drops something or knocks something over. By the time they're outside in the freezing night air, it's coming up to midnight.

“That's the longest close-down I've ever done,” Phil says, zipping his navy parka all the way up to his chin. He pokes Dan's arm. “You're a terrible distraction, buster.”

“Sorry,” Dan replies, although he's not sorry in the slightest. He glances at the pub over his shoulder as they begin walking away from it. “How long have you worked here for?”

“Oh God, ten years now. My aunt took the pub over and she got me a job - pure nepotism at play, of course, I'm too much of a clumsy idiot to get bar work on my own merit.”

“Shut up,” Dan says automatically, nudging him with his elbow as they trudge back to the farm. Phil smiles softly. 

“Anyway, let's say I've been here long enough to do close-down shifts in my sleep. And I do, sometimes, depending on how busy a week it's been.”

Dan peers at him. He doesn't say this with any pride, or with any clear enjoyment of his career paths; more with tired reservation. The orange street lights illuminate his profile, and for a moment Dan is so mesmerised he almost walks slap-bang into a post box.

As they head further out of town and into the dark countryside, they lapse into silence. It’s not awkward, exactly, but Dan’s keen to break it because in all honesty he wants to hear Phil ramble about nothing in particular. So he gives Phil the smallest nudge again and says, “So. Crash Bandicoot Lester.”

Phil smirks. “My pride and joy, yes. What about him?”

“Well. Just wondering why he’s not Sonic The Hedgehog Lester. Or, I don’t know, Super Mario Lester or something.”

“Okay, so I did name his sister Peach for this _exact_ reason, and I was _so_ close to naming him Waluigi but then my dad said he wouldn’t be seen dead yelling ‘Waluigi’ across the fields so…”

\---

They arrive outside of Dan’s cottage by half past twelve. Dan can’t feel his toes and he’s not certain his face isn’t completely on fire from the cold, but he wouldn’t change anything for a second. Phil stands awkwardly outside of the front door, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.

“Right. So. This is you, then.”

“This is me, then,” Dan repeats, clutching the set of keys in his coat pocket. Phils nods, surveying the building as if he’s just seeing it for the first time. Ten seconds pass until Phil finally clears his throat and nods in the direction of where they’ve just come from.

“I guess I’d better be heading back. But thank you. For visiting the pub. And for making my life a little less boring for one night.”

Dan smiles, brow furrowed, and shifts his weight onto his right leg. “I mean, as much as I really was enjoying those reruns of _Dinnerladies_ , thank you for the same thing. D’you live far from here?”

“Oh, just…” Phil gestures vaguely towards Peel. “Over there.”

Dan frowns. “Back towards the pub?”

“I mean, yeah, in that direction. Maybe… a little bit further away.”

“ _Phil!_ ” 

He’s not angry, of course, not by a long stretch; in fact there’s a warmth radiating through Dan like he’s just done a fireball shot, heating his face up more than the biting winter wind ever could. Phil walked all this way for _him._ Dan can’t remember the last time anyone’s ever walked him home, except for that time at the age of nineteen when a guy he’d gotten off with in a club toilets trailed after him to borrow his phone charger. Phil rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed, and says, “It’s not far, honestly, and these roads are treacherous if you don’t know them well.”

Dan sighs and leans back against the front door. “Well. Thank you for walking me home, my knight in shining armour.”

Phil smiles at this, at least, and tilts his head into a semblance of a bow. “You’re welcome. Any time.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to [ahappydnp](www.ahappydnp.tumblr.com) for beta-reading and cheerleading this chapter despite only knowing me for an hour lol


	2. Chapter 2

The first week at Grianane Farm passes in a haze of grey clouds, chapter revisions, cups of tea, microwaved ready meals and useless half-formed sentences scribbled into his black moleskine notebook at three in the morning. Before Dan knows it, it’s Saturday, and the only thing he’s managed to do in five days is delete more of his writing than add to it.

He needs to shake himself out of this funk. The whole point of being three hundred-odd miles away from London is to spark some inspiration in the vast and sprawling countryside, after all. So he slips on his brown walking boots (new, never worn, still with the crumpled up paper shoved into the toe section) and his Patagonia coat (new, never worn, still with the very expensive price tag attached to the inside lining), and sets off into the unknown. 

It’s hard, at first. _Roaming_. Dan’s never really been one to roam without purpose before. On the rare occasions he leaves his flat, it’s always with an objective in mind: attend a meeting, network with fellow creatives, be interviewed for another queer magazine, get some desperately-needed overpriced coffee. London is not designed for aimless wandering. It’s too crowded, too noisy, and just too damn _big_ to enjoy pounding the streets without reason. 

Here, everything is silent. Slow. Dan can stand in a field and stare up into the sky and watch a flock of starlings dip and swoop over his head for minutes, and nobody pushes past him or tuts at him for taking time out of his day to stop for a breather. As Dan walks, he leaves the large, flat farmland and approaches a heavy wooded area, where the sound of rushing water becomes increasingly more apparent. He treks through the trees and the rocks, following alongside the river towards the source of the noise, and marvels at how dark it’s suddenly gotten and how luminously green the moss is that coats every available surface. At one stage he trips over a large tree root and crashes into a sharp boulder, and he swears so loudly at the sudden pain in his knee that he scares a family of birds out of the nearby branches, but discovering where the noise is coming from has become a personal mission. There’s no bloody way he’s stopping now.

Ten minutes later and he finds it. A waterfall. A real life _waterfall_.

Dan’s so giddy with excitement at this concept that he actually lets out a bark of high-pitched laughter. This is the first time he’s ever seen a waterfall in the wild, not counting the trip to Niagara Falls he made as a child with his family. He snaps a couple of pictures on his phone to send to his mum, then is hit with the insatiable urge to just… sit.

So Dan does. He finds a rock large enough to perch on and draws in a few deep, slow breaths as he gazes at the view around him. He slips his notebook out of his bag and scribbles down a few ideas.

  * **_Niagara Falls - six years old - just me, mum and dad - anything to talk about there??_**
  * **_not much ££ but dad always took us on nice holidays_**



Dan pauses at that. Puts away his notebook. Takes one last look at the waterfall and starts his slow limp back to the farm.

When Dan arrives back at the cottage, he’s exhausted and sore and his new boots have given him blisters, but he’s never been so desperate to open his laptop and write. In fact, by the time Dan stops it’s half past eight at night, he’s starving hungry, and he’s suddenly three thousand words up.

So, on Sunday, Dan heads out for another walk.

\---

Against all odds, it’s cloudy. Again. Dan isn’t convinced he’s seen blue sky once since he arrived on the Isle - no wonder Phil is so pale, if he’s only witnessed sunlight a handful of times since he was born.

Dan smiles to himself as he locks the front door and adjusts his backpack on his shoulders. He hasn’t seen Phil all week, unless he counts the times he’s peered out of his bedroom window to spy on Phil working on the farm (and the less he thinks about the implications of _that_ , the better). Phil’s good with the sheep; maybe not the best at wrangling them up to send them back into the barn, granted, but he’s tender and gentle with them in a way that his dad isn’t. More than once, Dan’s caught him crouched down in front of them, whispering sweet nothings and petting their woolly heads like he would a cat. It’s cute. _Frustratingly_ cute. 

As if summoned by the sheer laws of attraction itself, Dan slopes off down the rugged dirt track and spots a figure perched on the wooden fence that surrounds the main field. Phil’s much too tall to teeter atop such a flimsy structure, and his back curves as he rests his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. The grin stretching Dan’s mouth so wide it hurts starts to slip as he gets closer. Phil looks… not right. Drawn into himself. _Anxious_ , if Dan had to put a name on it, judging by the way he taps his fingers erratically against his cheek and bounces one leg up and down so hard it makes the fence creak. Phil’s frowning gaze is fixated on his dad and Crash as they go about their day of work, and he’s so absorbed that he doesn’t notice Dan until it’s too late.

Dan reaches out and tugs on his coat hood, sending Phil reeling backwards with a loud shriek that causes the nearby sheep to stare at them.

“You evil, _evil_ boy!” Phil gasps, throwing both hands out against the fence to steady himself. Dan just grins innocently and leans down on his forearms next to Phil’s thigh. 

“Sorry, mate, couldn’t resist. See you’re hard at work.”

“It’s my day off, you dick,” Phil replies, giving Dan’s hair a sharp, playful tug. Then he hums and says, “It’s good to see you again, anyway. I’ve missed you this week. Well. I _thought_ I’d missed you, until you tried to break my neck.” 

“Lies and slander. I did no such thing.”

“Attempted assassination, I bet that’s what it was. You’ve been staking me out for days, planning your strike. Did one of my enemies put you up to it?”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Dan giggles, before it hits him that _oh shit, maybe he shouldn’t be calling someone he doesn’t really know an idiot._ Thankfully, Phil just gives his arm a light slap, so Dan pokes his thigh back. “Did you really miss me? I like that, say that again - somebody actually _missed_ my presence. Ooh, I’m getting chills.”

“Oh yeah, I definitely missed your presence. The sheep aren’t nearly as riveting. Where’re you off to, anyway?”

“Just out for a morning stroll. Clearing the cobwebs, getting those creative juices gushing out of me.”

Phil groans and pulls a face, but he’s grinning too. “Never says ‘juices gushing out of me’ again.”

“Creative juices out of _every orifice_ -”

“Shut _up_!”

Phil swings his long legs around and, with all the grace of an inflatable tube man, he launches himself off the fence. He raises his arms to stretch out the kinks that have undoubtedly built up in his back, and when his t-shirt rides up to reveal a strip of his stomach Dan's brain short-circuits like the useless gay he is. 

“So,” Phil says as he drops his arms, seemingly unaware that he’s just broken Dan with the mere exposure of his midriff, “Are you off to anywhere in particular, or are you just going to wander around aimlessly and hope you don’t get eaten by bears?”

“Are there bears on the Isle of Man?”

“I mean. No.”

“Then I guess I’ll take my chances with wandering around aimlessly,” Dan says, hitching his backpack into a more comfortable position on his shoulders. “Unless you can recommend anywhere that I should visit.”

“There’s Niarbyl Beach, that’s pretty cool. It’s all rocky and hilly, and when the tide is out you can go hunting for beach treasures.”

 _Beach treasures._ He’s so sickeningly sweet and sincere that Dan wants to launch himself into the sea.

“It’s about an hour and a half away, over there somewhere,” Phil says, gesturing off to the distance. “Or maybe it’s this way. I’ve never been too good at explaining directions, I get my lefts and my rights all mixed up.” 

“Oh, fantastic. Knowing my luck I’ll get lost and you’ll have to call mountain rescue.”

“It’s not hard to find, honestly. It’s just down a road and then down another road.” Phil shifts from one foot to the other and rubs the tips of his fingers into his palm. “I could… show you, if you wanted? If you don’t mind me tagging along and ruining your peaceful morning stroll, that is.”

Well. Dan can hardly say no to a proposition like that, can he?

While Phil darts off towards the house to get some supplies for their big adventure, Dan rests against the fence and watches the goings on of the farm. Nigel strides across the field, a small dot in the distance, shouting sharp orders to Crash as the dog races about. They’re rounding the sheep up, it seems, forcing them into a metal pen for reasons unbeknown to Dan. It’s weird to imagine Phil doing this. He doesn’t seem built for a job that requires him to get his hands dirty, for a job that’s so physically demanding all year round, for a job that’s so… _boring_. Dan could imagine Phil swanning around the BBC in his glasses and speckled jumper, putting that weird little mind of his to good use inventing monsters for _Doctor Who_ or something. Not shearing sheep and shovelling shit. 

Still. Dan’s no stranger to being forced into a career path that’s expected of him. He’s got a whole best-selling book about it.

Phil comes bounding over equipped with a full rucksack on his back and a rolled up picnic blanket under his arm. “For us to sit on when we get to the beach,” he explains with a grin as they set off down the path towards the main road. “I’d hate for you to get sand on those _very_ expensive looking jeans.”

As they turn right down the street, Dan glances at the sign signalling the entrance to Grianane Farm. It’s bright blue, oddly enough, with a picture of a smiling cartoon sheep standing on top of a hill - the whole thing screams a Kath Lester decision.

“What does it mean? Grianane?”

Phil whoops with laughter. “Oh, you’ll love this. It’s Manx for ‘Sunny Spot’.”

“Fuck _off_.”

Their hysterical howling could probably be heard on the other side of the island.

\---

It turns out that it took Phil four attempts to pass his driving test and the whole experience traumatised him so much he doesn’t drive anymore. Somehow he’s only ever broken two bones in his life, although he sustains unexplainable bruises, cuts and grazes on a daily basis. He’s horrendous at navigation, as proven by the fact that he takes a turning too early and sends them down the wrong street for a whole ten minutes before realising his mistake. 

“I’m a bit of a useless human,” Phil admits with a self-deprecating chuckle as they get back on the right path. “You learn to get used to it.”

And yet, Phil is able to tell him more facts about animals than Dan has ever heard in his life. He has a sense of humour that’s both so sharp and so daft, Dan’s stomach hurts from laughing so much. He spots rubbish in the street and automatically picks it up to put in his rucksack, he stops mid-conversation to point out and name an interesting plant or tree, and everyone they pass calls out a cheerful hello to Phil that he returns just as happily. 

“Morning, Pete,” he shouts to a man waving at them from atop a tractor. Phil glances at Dan, sees him grinning, and a pink tinge appears across his cheeks. “What?”

“Nothing,” Dan shakes his head, still grinning. “Just you.”

“Sorry. There’s only eighty thousand people living on the Isle of Man, so it pays to be nice to them.”

“Fucking hell. There’s about eight _million_ people in London. And I don’t think a single one of them has ever been nice to me.”

Phil hums, mulling this over. “Eight million. Jesus. I have panic attacks when Douglas gets too busy in the summer. Don’t think I’d be able to cope with eight million people.”

“You prefer the company of sheep, huh?”

“Ew, fuck off, that sounds horrible,” Phil laughs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat and kicking a stone into the hedgerow. “But I do generally prefer hanging out with animals than big groups of humans, yes.”

“Has your family always owned the farm?” Dan asks, suddenly curious about growing up with such a rural way of life. Dan spent his formative years in a small semi-detached house in Wokingham, getting drunk off blue WKD down the park with his mates and mooching around Starbucks instead of attending Science class. Worlds away from Phil’s childhood, he imagines. He’s not even sure if there’s a single Starbucks on the island.

“Yep. Dates as far back as my great-great granddad.”

“Cool. So one day, everything the light touches will be yours,” Dan jokes in his best Mufasa impersonation, gesturing grandly at the fields before him. Phil doesn’t laugh, though. He just smiles and makes a weird, strangled noise of agreement.

Dan drops his arms, deflated. Ah. Touchy subject. 

“What about you?” Phil blurts out, clearly keen to move the conversation forward. “Are you from London originally?”

“No, but not far from it. I moved there to study Law at university.”

Phil whistles, impressed. “You’re a lawyer, huh? Fancy.”

“Oh no, I’m not a lawyer - I fucked all that right up. Dropped out of uni in my second year, spent about ten months as an unemployed sad sack wallowing in depression while my parents begrudgingly paid my rent, worked a few odd jobs for never very long, started writing a blog on the side just to give myself something to do and then… well. Somehow that got popular, to the point where a publishing house found it and asked me if I’d consider writing a book.”

“Oh my God, seriously? That’s awesome,” Phil breathes, staring at him like he’s some sort of rockstar. “And that’s what you’re here to do? Write your book?”

“Uh. Sort of. I’m here to write my third book.”

Phil stops dead in his tracks at that, so suddenly that Dan doesn’t notice for a good few paces. He turns, blinking, and Phil stares right back at him, a smile creeping wider and wider across his face.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he said, shaking his head like he’s just been told Dan’s a member of the royal family. “That’s… Dan, that’s _amazing_.”

“Oh God, it’s really not. I mean, thank you, but it’s really just a lot of me staring blankly at my laptop and trying to resist the urge to throw it out of my apartment window.”

Phil rolls his eyes at him and they resume walking. The road they’re tramping along is parallel to the sea; embarrassingly, Dan gasped when they rounded the corner and it appeared so close to them, as though he’d never seen a large body of water before. The cloud above them is starting to break up, revealing jigsaw patches of weak blue sky and the occasional slither of sunlight. 

Phil nudges him with his shoulder. “So go on then. What’s the book about? Or is it a secret?”

“It’s not so much a secret, more ‘I don’t have a fucking clue myself’.”

“Ah. What are your other two about?”

“They’re like… a collection of essays, I guess. Funny moments in my life, or moments of self-reflection, with a bit of advice thrown in for good measure. Y’know, like David Foster Wallace or Nora Ephron.”

Phil makes all the right noises, but it’s clear from his blank expression that he has no idea what Dan is talking about. No doubt he expected to be told that Dan’s written the latest Harry Potter ripoffs, or a set of murder mystery thrillers. He wouldn’t be the first. Dan clears his throat nervously and plows on.

“So my first book was all about my sad excuse for a love life and the trials and tribulations of being gay in a big city, and I talked a bit about coming out and learning to accept yourself and stuff. And my second one was about mental health, living with depression and anxiety and ways to deal with that.”

“Wow. That sounds…” Phil pauses, as if thinking hard about the correct thing to say. “Very noble of you. To put yourself out there like that to help people.”

 _Noble_. That's not a word Dan's heard to describe his books before. He shrugs and says, “Well, now my agent wants me to write a book all about my childhood. Growing up with family issues and dealing with bullying and all that.”

“Oh.” Phil frowns. “And do you think that's… something people would want to read?”

Dan can’t help but laugh at Phil’s bluntness. “No. It's not really something I want to write about either. There are only so many different ways you can say 'my dad was a bit of a bastard and my mum wasn't really around much'.”

“Right.” They lapse into the uncomfortable silence that follows when someone reveals slightly too much private information to a new acquaintance. Then, in total Phil fashion, Phil chuckles to himself and jams his elbow into Dan’s ribs. “Well, whatever you do, can you dedicate it to me? 'To Phil, my muse and main source of inspiration.'" 

“Oh yeah, sure thing. 'To Phil - he told me in a _disturbing_ amount of detail how lambs are birthed, without that this book wouldn't exist.'”

They reach Niarbyl Road by midday, just as the last few cotton-wool clouds disappear; the sun beams behind them, making their shadows stretch on like two lanky twins. Hedgerows speckled with yellow flowers line either side of the narrow path (‘ _the common gorse’_ , Phil informs him, ‘ _it’s absolutely bloody everywhere’_ ), and ahead the sea beckons them on. Phil draws in a deep breath and hums, pleased. 

“Can you hear the beach?”

“Can I hear the _beach_?” Dan repeats. “Don’t you mean the sea?”

“You wouldn’t be able to hear the sea if it wasn’t for the beach, though, would you?”

“I-” The logic makes Dan’s head spin. In the end he flaps his arms, flummoxed, and says, “Sure, Phil, I can hear the beach.”

And he can, the realisation of which makes Dan feel a little light-headed with childish glee. The soft crashing of waves against rock, the screech of seagulls overhead; it’s so unlike London’s constant headache-inducing hubbub, it’s almost too good to be true. Dan speeds up, suddenly desperate to get there, and thankfully Phil matches his pace.

They round the final corner and it’s.... it’s beautiful.

The surrounding hill is covered in beach grass and gorse, swaying gently in the wind, and further down is a patch of black rocks and gravelly shoreline. The sea seems to stretch on forever, glistening like blue glass under the weak February sun. Phil leads the way, because Dan’s awe has forced him into a stumbling stop, and soon they crunch their walking boots down onto stone and sand and seaweed.

“Well. Here we are,” Phil announces. He gives the blanket a flourish and lies it down against the rocks. “It’s not the most comfortable seating arrangement, but it’ll have to do.”

“Have to do for what?” Dan asks feebly, still transfixed on the brilliant white foam caused by the breaking waves. 

“For our picnic. Duh.”

Dan blinks down at him. Phil has already settled himself onto the blanket and is in the process of pulling half a bakery out of his rucksack. Pasties in cling film and cakes in plastic tubs and bags of crisps and a huge tartan travel flask full of something hot. Phil peers up at him, squinting in the sunlight, and gives him a half-smile. 

“It’s all vegan, promise. I mentioned the fact that you were vegan to Mum a couple of days ago, and she made the cakes special to drop round to you today. She didn’t make the pasties, mind, but Mandy in town owns the café that does them and her daughter’s vegan so Mum popped in yesterday and-”

“Phil,” Dan gasps, overwhelmed. Phil’s smile falters.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Am I being a bit much?”

“No, no, this is just… this is so fucking _lovely_.”

“Oh.” Phil laughs and pats the blanket for Dan to join him. “It’s just some food and a tiny rock beach, you weirdo, it’s not the Ritz. Now sit down before the seagulls start planning their attack.”

The food is incredible. So much so that Dan can’t help his erotic moan as he shovels sweet and savoury carbohydrates into his mouth, even when Phil kicks him quiet.

“I don’t know how you’re so skinny,” Dan mumbles around a mouthful of homemade lemon drizzle cake. “Having all this amazing food to hand.”

“Nervous energy,” Phil supplies. “That’s all it can be. I don’t go to the gym, I hate all team sports, and I’d rather die than go running in public. A friend of mine once said I look like an ill horse that needs putting down when I run.”

Dan chokes on his laugher and inelegantly sprays crumbs everywhere. “Charming. So what do you do with your free time, if all exercise is out of the window?”

Phil snorts. “Free time? What’s that? I catch up on sleep, mostly. Or sometimes I stay up all night binge-watching TV shows.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“All sorts - if it’s on Netflix, chances are I’ve given it a go. I like fantasy stuff, mainly. I could watch _Buffy_ on repeat for the rest of my life and I’d be happy.”

Dan hums as he takes a swig of (very sugary) tea straight from the flask. A group of large, fat seagulls have taken refuge on a nearby boulder and are watching them intently with their beedy, evil eyes. “I loved _Buffy_. James Marsters, _oof_.”

“It was David Boreanaz for me,” Phil says with a small, bashful smile. “Any Nineties heartthrob with beautifully gelled spiky hair and I was a goner.”

 _Bingo_. Dan could have hazarded a guess, of course he could, but there’s nothing quite like that delicious tingly feeling of a fellow queer confirmation. He nods appreciatively. 

“Excellent choice. Although it’s only now when I go back and watch them that I realise what a true _daddy_ Anthony Head was.”

They sit and chat and let their food go down for about an hour, until the tide makes its way back enough that Phil’s face lights up. He scrambles off the blanket, dusts himself down for stray pastry flakes and powdered sugar, and announces, “Right, Danny boy, I am going to introduce you to the art of hunting for beach treasures. We’ve both got five minutes to find the coolest rock or shell that we can. Okay?”

“Uh.” Dan stands on wobbly legs, the beginnings of cramp in his right calf sending him off kilter. “Alright, you’re on. What does the winner get?”

“Um… a sense of a job well done.”

“Fantastic. I could do with some of that.”

They both take opposite ends of the coastline: Dan crunches his way over white sand and shingle, while Phil heads straight towards the sea and clambers over newly-revealed wet black rock. Dan sacrifices a few precious seconds to turn and watch him for a moment. The sunlight illuminates Phil’s profile, catching on his high cheekbones and the jagged curve of his nose. His inky hair flutters in the breeze, and Phil pushes it back with one of those beautiful, delicate hands as he stares intently at the ground around him. Suddenly, he slips on a patch of seaweed and almost goes arse over tit, slamming his hands out against the rock to steady himself as he pitches forward. It doesn’t faze him, however, judging by the distant whoop and the way he scrambles for something within the crevices. 

“I’ve already got you beat, bro!” Phil calls out. Dan just raises his middle finger back at him.

Something cool, something cool… Dan treks further down the beach, kicking over stones and stopping to dust down fragments of shell. It’s all the same dull beige, chipped and broken. Dan huffs and stomps further out towards the water’s edge. As the sea surges in, it laps dangerously close to the toes of Dan’s new boots, but in one exhilarating, heart-stopping moment Dan spots it. A shell, fully intact and such a beautiful blue that it seems to glow. He darts for it, covering his hands in wet sand and seaweed mulch as he digs it out, and after a final wash in the freezing sea it’s all ready.

It’s stunning. One of those snail shell shapes, in whorling patterns of blue and green and golden brown. _Like Phil’s eyes_ , Dan’s brain supplies in possibly one of the most pathetic subconscious thought patterns he’s ever had. _Fellas, is it gay to hunt for sea shells that look like the eyes of the man you’ve got a weird crush on?_

“Time’s up!” Phil hollers from behind him, and Dan skips over like an excitable child, his shit-eating grin so wide it makes his cheeks ache. 

“Oh mate. _Mate_. You’re not going to _believe_ what I’ve found.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll go first,” Phil says, bouncing on his heels in his impatience to reveal his own treasure. He opens his fist, palm flat, and sitting in the middle is an amber coloured rock streaked with white and black, giving it a marbled effect. Tiger stripes. It is, undoubtedly, a very cool rock.

“I love it,” Dan breathes, touching it gently with one finger.

“It’s amazing, right? Okay, buster, beat that.”

So Dan does. He opens his hand to reveal his beautiful blue shell, and Phil actually gasps in response.

“ _Dan,_ ” he whines, picking the shell up and observing it in the sunlight. “This is gorgeous. Ugh, you win.”

With a resigned sigh, Phil places the shell back onto Dan’s palm, and joins the rock there too. Dan blinks, bemused.

“Aren’t you going to keep your treasure?”

“No, you have it. I’ve got too many cool rocks at home, I could probably open up my own beach.” Phil looks up at him and smiles softly. “Honestly, you keep it. It’s a memento, right? Stick it on your desk as you write and maybe it’ll give you inspiring vibes.”

Suddenly, Phil frowns. Leans in close to Dan’s face, like Dan has just developed a spot the size of Mount Everest. Dan cringes back out of instinct and resists the urge to scrub his face with his sleeve. “ _What_ , you weirdo?”

“Nothing, just stay still. You’ve got an…” Phil reaches out, slowly so as not to spook Dan, towards his eye. “It’s an eyelash. Just wait there.”

With his finger and thumb, Phil gently picks the eyelash off the soft skin under Dan’s eye, then leans back with a satisfied smile. He holds his thumb out, the long, dark hair resting on top. 

“Okay, you’re safe. Now make a wish.”

Of course. Of course Phil is a beach-treasure-competition guy, and a memento-keeping guy, and an I-told-my-mum-you-were-vegan-so-she-could-make-specific-treats-for-you guy, and of _course_ he’s a wish-on-an-eyelash guy. Dan makes a show of huffing and rolling his eyes, but he closes them anyway and blows the eyelash off of Phil’s thumb.

_I wish… God, I wish this big, dumb idiot would kiss me already._

\---

The walk home doesn’t seem to take as long, even though they’re going at a third of the pace they set on the way here, both too sleepy and full of pastry to move much quicker. They pass the time playing twenty questions: favourite colour (black for Dan, blue for Phil), a food you hate (Phil’s list is so long that Dan doesn’t get chance to answer), a musical artist that always appears in your Spotify top five (Muse for both of them, which derails the whole game into a thirty-minute fangirling session).

They have so much in common it’s mind-blowing. Not just the same taste in films and music and video games and literature, but beyond that. The same personal values. The same cringy emo experience growing up. The same stupid sense of humour. Dan does an obnoxiously loud yet frighteningly accurate impression of a London pigeon if it could talk, and Phil gets the giggles so much that he gives himself hiccups.

They reach the path that leads to Grianane Farm just as the sun is beginning to set. 

“Are you going back home now, then?” Dan asks, shifting his weight so that his blisters don't rub as much. Phil boggles at him like he's insane.

“Uh, no chance. It’s Sunday, Mum makes her big roast dinner tonight. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.” Phil taps the toe of his boot against Dan's. “Are you going to come?”

“Oh God, I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t want to put anyone out.”

“Trust me, Dan, my mum will be more put out if you didn’t turn up,” Phil smiles. “Tell you what - go back to your place, have a shower and a nap or whatever. Then see how you are at about six, that’s when the food’s normally ready. Okay?”

“Okay,” Dan agrees.

As soon as he gets through the front door of the cottage, Dan yanks off his boots and leaves them in a pile by the door along with his coat and beanie hat. He’s hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion, the kind of warm, peaceful tiredness that comes with exercise and fresh air, but he makes himself indulge in a twenty minute shower to wash away all the lingering sweat and sand before collapsing into bed. Part of him wants to sleep through until the morning. Part of him, surprisingly, wants to write. But, when he wakes from his dead slumber at half past five, the biggest part of him is desperate for roast potatoes and gravy.

Dan knocks on the Lester front door thirty minutes later, oddly jittery with nerves. He doesn’t do family meals. He doesn’t really do family _anything_ , so he’s not totally sure what the protocol is. The door swings open and it’s Phil, now dressed in a pink and purple hoodie, black sweatpants and another fetching pair of mismatched socks. His hair is slightly damp and flopping forward across his forehead, he’s got his black-framed glasses on, and he beams so brilliantly at the sight of Dan that it’s almost blinding.

“You made it!” 

“I made it,” Dan repeats, gesturing wide so that the sleeves of his stripy batwing jumper stretch out. “Ready to steal all your food and the love of your parents.”

Crash skids into view, colliding with Phil’s legs in his desperate attempt to greet their new guest. He barks and leaps up with his front paws to rest them on Dan’s stomach.

“Leave him alone, you mental creature!” Phil sighs in despair.

“No, please,” Dan insists, fingers buried in inches of soft black and white fur as Crash slobbers over his (painfully expensive) All Saints sweater. “If I’m going to die, I might as well die happy under forty pounds of pure doggo.” 

“True. But I’m starving, so we need to eat.” 

Phil wraps both arms around Crash’s middle and hauls him away from Dan, then gives him a gentle shove with his foot to get him further into the house. “Go on, you lughead, go find some chicken to steal. Right.” Phil sinks into a bow, extends one arm to the rest of the house. “If you’ll please follow me, Danielton, I’ll lead you to the dining quarters.”

The dining table is like something out of the Great Hall in Harry Potter. It’s absolutely heaving with food: piles of glistening glazed vegetables, a mountain of fluffy golden roast potatoes, homemade Yorkshire puddings the size of Dan’s head, and chicken that smells so good Dan has half a mind to put his veganism aside for one night. Kath comes bustling through with a jug of steaming gravy, and makes a noise of happy surprise.

“Daniel! Aw, it’s good to see you, pet. I’m glad Phil didn’t tire you out too much on your walk today - I did tell him walking all the way down to Niabyl might have been a bit much in your first week,” Kath says as she hunts for a spot to put the gravy boat in amongst all the dishes.

“It was fine. I really enjoyed it,” Dan replies. “Oh, thank you so much for the picnic food, by the way - those cakes were absolute _peak_ tier.”

“Does that mean good?” Kath chuckles. “You’re very welcome, love. Phil mentioned you might be popping round so I’ve made you one of those vegan nut roasts, I’ll just get it out of the oven. Philip, child, go fetch your dad for me and tell him tea’s ready. D’you want a glass of wine, Dan?”

“Oh, uh - yes. Please. Thank you. And thank you, for the uh - the nut roast. Thanks.”

Dan doesn’t remember when he got so awkwardly posh and polite around actual adults, but his insufferable Christopher Robin voice is starting to piss himself off. Thankfully, the Lester seniors are just as easy-going and chatty as their offspring. They’re warm in a way that Dan’s family aren’t; they can poke fun and tease without getting snippy or passive aggressive; they actually _talk_ to each other about their days. It’s nice. _Weird_. But nice.

“Oh, Phil, have you heard about our Mar?” Nigel asks, as Kath stacks the plates at the end of dinner.

“Nope,” Phil mumbles. He’s slumped in his seat, eyes at half mast, scratching lethargically at Crash’s head where he’s sat with his chin resting on Phil’s thigh. “What’s up with him?”

“He’s visiting next week. Him and Cornelia, they’re coming over for the weekend,” Nigel supplies with a fond smile. “Your mum’s already got the spare room ready for them.”

“Hush, you, I’m excited. We haven’t seen them in months,” Kath grumbles, slapping her husband’s arm with the napkin she’s just collected. Phil sits up in his seat at that, eyes brighter.

“Yeah? Nice one!” As Nigel shuffles off for a quick lie down to let his dinner settle, Phil leans in to Dan and explains. “That’s my brother and his girlfriend. Oh, they live in London actually - maybe you’ve bumped into them at some point!” 

Dan blinks back at him. “Phil, I would _highly_ doubt it.”

“Never say never, though. Cosmic intervention, fate, all of that - how weird would it be if you, at some point, had bumped into Martyn and now here you are staying on his family farm?”

“It would be weird. It would be a very odd coincidence. That’s it.”

Phil huffs and sinks back into his chair. “You’re no fun.”

Kath finishes stacking the dishes, but before she can even start moving them into the kitchen, Dan becomes possessed by the spirit of his Nana and he blurts out, “Let me wash those for you.”

“You’ll be doing no such thing,” Kath reprimands. “You’re a _guest_. Phil will do them.” 

“What?” Phil squawks. “I’m a guest too!”

Kath just gives him the look, so Phil picks up the plates with a huff and shuffles off into the kitchen, Crash at his heels. Kath tuts, amused, and pours out the last of the red wine into her and Dan’s glasses. She chinks them together.

“To your first week, sweetheart. How’s your book coming along?”

“Oh, my..?” Dan stumbles, flustered. 

“Oh Lord, I’m sorry. Phil mentioned it, he’s a total blabbermouth when he wants to be - if it’s private then just forget I’ve ever said anything.”

“No, no! I’m that tired my brain is working about five steps behind the rest of me.” Dan swirls his wine in his glass, takes a sip and nods. “It’s starting to take shape. I think I’m going to… go at it from a new angle. It’ll take me a few days to figure out what I’m doing, but hopefully I’ll get there.”

Kath hums, impressed. They sit in companionable silence, with only the muffled sound of Phil singing along to the radio in the kitchen to break it. There are photos on the walls, Dan notices: holiday snaps of Phil and his brother as kids, all strawberry blond hair, sunburn and gap teeth, and some of Kath and Nigel in their twenties, loved-up and moony.

“So you’re not from the island originally?” Dan asks. Kath shakes her head as she swallows her wine.

“No, I’m from Manchester way. I came on holiday here, back in the Seventies, when I was just a young girl - me and a couple of mates from college.” She smiles, rolls her eyes. “You’re daft when you’re that age, aren’t you? Anyway, we were in the pub one night and we got chatting to a group of young lads. All my friends paired off straight away with all the fellas, and well. Guess who drew the short straw and got left with me?”

Dan knows for a fact that can’t be true, knows there’s no way Nigel didn’t fall head over heels in seconds. He’s seen the way Phil’s parents look at each other. The fact that they even _do_ look at each other, which is more than he could say about his own parents back when they were together. 

“And the rest is history?” Dan says. Kath chuckles in agreement.

“Aye, I’ve been trapped here ever since. No, I’ve loved it. We had the boys. We’ve all muddled in and run the farm together. My sister even came over, about fifteen years ago, so her and her family have settled down here now and they own the Peacock. It’s been…” She nods. “Well. It’s been enough for me.”

She pauses. Surveys the photographs around her, as if seeing them properly for the first time. Licks her lips and finally speaks again.

“When Phil was about twelve or so, we bought him a video camera for his birthday. He was always talking about wanting to make movies and such, always writing little plays to act out with his friends. Anyway, that summer I used to take him and Mart out on day trips, to keep them busy while their dad was working. And Phil brought his video camera _everywhere._ He made this…” she breaks off to laugh fondly, lost in the memory. “This advert, I guess. ‘Come to the Isle of Man, come visit our beaches, this is where they do the TT racing’, et cetera. He filmed it, starred in it, edited it, the whole works. And it was _fantastic_.”

“I bet it was,” Dan smiles, chin resting on his hand because all the wine is making his head feel too heavy and fuzzy to hold up. Kath nods, takes another sip from her own glass.

“We sent it off to the Isle of Man tourist board, actually, and they sent us a letter back telling us they were so impressed that they were passing it over to England to see if it could be turned into an advert.”

“No shit?” Dan blurts out, before covering his mouth with both hands. “Oh God, sorry.”

Kath just chuckles, flaps her hand.

“Anyway, as it was we never heard anything else about it. Never saw it on telly or anything. But that didn’t bother Phil - it just spurred him on to make more things, to create bigger and better videos. And that’s just him all over. He’s amazing.” Kath glances at the closed kitchen door, where Phil’s humming and the sound of clattering dishes can be heard. She smiles wistfully, tilts her head to the side. “He’s truly amazing.”

Just as Dan is wondering what the point of this nice, but seemingly random, anecdote is, there’s a sudden crash and Phil lets out a stream of muffled curse words. Dan yelps and clutches at his racing heart, while Kath just winces; she’s a seasoned professional at dealing with Phil’s clumsy nature. The door opens and Phil sticks his head around it, holding his hands up in defence.

“It’s fine! It’s fine. I only dropped the knives and forks, I promise.”

“It’s alright, you silly boy,” Kath says, shaking her head affectionately. “Go finish up, then, I’m probably boring Dan to tears.”

“You’re really not,” Dan tells her when Phil slips away again. Kath just winks at him, finishes the last of her wine, and lets out a heavy sigh. 

“I don’t know. You always try your best as a parent, you always hope you’re making the right decisions. We tried, raising our boys here. But I just think that some people are built for things bigger than this little island can hold.”

And then that’s it. The penny drops.

\---

One more bottle of wine and one very heated game of Monopoly later, and Dan and Phil slouch their way over to the cottage. Dan’s exhausted, full of good food and a little tipsy, so walking in a straight line becomes an impossible feat, as proven by the way he keeps staggering into Phil.

“Are you drunk?” Phil giggles. 

“No. I’m _shattered_ , I can barely move one foot in front of the other. Either that or you’ve got a magnet arm and I’ve got a metal arm.”

“Nice. Magnet Arm and Metal Arm. The superheroes nobody asked for or needed.”

“God, how useless would we be? We _can_ fight crime, but we’ll be glued to each other the entire time we’re doing it.”

This sets Phil off again, tittering to himself until he’s out of breath. 

They reach the front door, illuminated by the buzzing security light. Phil has calmed down by this point, and stands, arms swaying, like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how to start.

“Thank you,” he lands on eventually. “For humouring me today and letting me hang out with you. I’m sure you’ve probably regretted it, but I’ve had a really good day.”

“Shut up,” Dan scoffs. “I should be thanking you. It’s been… honestly amazing. Every minute of it. Even when you told me how to deworm sheep in a painful amount of detail.”

Phil smiles, looks down at the floor. Scuffs the toe of his trainer against the gravel path. _Dawdles_. Dan wishes Jedi mind tricks were a real thing so he could pull one on Phil right now: _'this is the gay you're looking for’._

“Oh! I almost forgot, I’ve got something for you.” Phil reaches into the deep pockets of his parka and pulls out two CD cases. He presses them into Dan’s hand: _Origin of Symmetry_ and _Absolution_. Muse. “They’re for your car. Y’know, just in case you fancy a drive around and you don’t want to listen to ABBA on repeat. I remembered I had them in my old bedroom.”

“Phil,” Dan breathes, flipping the CDs over in his hands. “I… thank you. I don’t quite know what I’ve done to warrant you being so nice to me all the time, but thank you.” 

“You’ve done plenty enough,” Phil replies quietly.

If Dan were to turn this holiday into a quirky, self-deprecating essay for one of his books, this would be the prime cinematic moment for them to kiss. Super romantic, of course, even in the bitter night air and the harsh white light of the security bulb. Phil’s lips are chapped but they look full and soft, and his hands are probably freezing but they’d soon warm up if he laced them into Dan’s hair, and if he happened to tug his curls in _just_ the right way in the process, then well...

Phil clears his throat and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. _Shit_. Dan hesitated for just a beat too long.

“Right. Um. I need to go. I’ve got to be up early in the morning, Dad wants me to check the new lambs over for any beginning stages of frostbite.” He winces, shakes his head. “Sorry, fuck, that was the most boring thing I think I’ve ever said. Anyway. I’ll… see you around next week?”

“Yes! Yes, yeah, of course,” Dan stumbles his way through his affirmation, caught off guard by the surprising lack of kissing happening. 

“Awesome. Oh, good luck with your book!”

“Yes, thank you, you too.”

Dan freezes. Phil’s eyes go wide. His grin gets even wider.

“You did not.”

“Stop.”

“You did not just drop a ‘you too’.”

“You’re a dick.”

Phil cackles with laughter and starts crunching his way across the gravel. “I’ve never been on the receiving end of a ‘you too’ before! Danny, that’s just made my night.”

“Fuck off, Lester. Don’t come near me, don’t even look at me. I’m going to throw myself into the sea now.”

Phil giggles all the way up the path until Dan can’t see him in the dark anymore. And oh, Dan really wants to be mad at him. But, as he clutches the CDs in one hand, slips his other into the pocket of his jeans and feels the smooth amber rock against his skin, he just doesn’t have the heart to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the love so far, I really appreciate it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick disclaimer for this chapter, and for the story in general - although it's based on real people, everything about this story is **fictional** and the characters in it are exactly that, they're just characters. I don't claim to know anything about Dan's real life family or his real life feelings about them (or Phil's for that matter), and this fic doesn't try to represent that in any way shape or form. Just wanted to clarify!
> 
> OH I almost forgot to mention - if you want a good example of the music in the last half of this chapter, [check this video out!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS6EvSjAJZI)

On Monday, Dan wakes up unable to move. It's as if all his limbs have seized up overnight, his knees swollen and throbbing, and his feet cut to ribbons thanks to those damn boots. 

It's a decent day too, which is a shame; Dan would've liked to drive around a bit, see what the east side of the island has to offer. Instead he spends most of it in a hot bath, trying to ease up his poor, aching joints, and then spends the rest napping in front of the television. Ah well, he reasons, eyelids flagging again as Victoria Wood and Julie Walters bicker on screen. There's always tomorrow. 

On Tuesday, Storm Erik hits. 

It's horrendous. The rain comes down in sheets, pounding against the windows so they rattle in their frames, and the wind howls through the cracks like a group of rowdy ghosts having a party. Dan stays locked up in his bedroom, the fire heater on full blast, but he still struggles to feel the tip of his nose and the ends of his fingers as he types. Eventually he gets up, wraps the knitted patchwork comforter around his shoulders like a cloak, and wipes away cold condensation on the tiny window to peer out of it. It’s no use. He can barely see the gnarled apple tree at the side of the cottage, let alone the field that lies beyond it.

Dan worries, because of course he worries; it’s one of his specialist skills. He worries about Phil, and his dad, out there in the storm trying to battle on because they still have work to do. He worries about the locals, even if he doesn’t know them, the ones working on boats or in ports or living along the coastline. He worries about the bloody _sheep_ , and hopes they’re staying warm and dry in their barn. 

Dan sighs, pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders, then huffs out a soft laugh at himself. _When will his husband return from war?_ Stupid. He shuffles back over to the desk and his open laptop, where the cursor is blinking away, waiting patiently for more words. 

He crossed twenty thousand this morning. It’s been a hard slog, lots of edits and changes and at one stage the deletion of an entire essay that just wasn’t working for him. It hurt, seeing his writing go down the shitter, but much like amputating a rotten limb it was for the best in the long run. Dan feels… okay about this. About where it’s all going. Not good, exactly, not yet, but definitely like he’s got more of a direction in mind.

Dan opens up his notebook, rifles through pages of scruffy sentences and seemingly random words. He takes a sip of coffee - cold now, but it still has the magical caffeinating properties he’s after - and finds the page he’s looking for.

**_Essay idea? - nerdy little theatre kid, always trying to be someone else (defo a metaphor in there somewhere) - end of year show, v v excited - only Nana and Grandad came to see it_ **

Dan chews on the end of his pen, frowning, and writes an extra note to himself at the bottom.

**_Call mum - why didn’t she turn up??_ **

He rubs at the space between his eyebrows, trying to ward off a headache that’s brewing. Kath’s words from Sunday keep coming back to him: _‘you always try your best as a parent’._ He really wants to give his parents the benefit of the doubt, more for his own selfish reasons than anything else. Writing thousands of words of whiny drivel about being fourteen and not fitting in just feels… arbitrary. Biased. _Childish_. Dan wants to do something substantial with these uncomfortable, jagged emotions; he wants to round them out and smooth them down and do some real learning from them, rather than using this manuscript as his own tragic teenage diary. 

So that settles it then. He’ll have to call his mother, to hear her side of the story.

There’s a flash outside, and the sudden boom of rolling thunder so loud it seems to shake the house. Dan jumps, startled, and pulls the blanket further around himself. Well. He’ll call her when there’s any hope of getting a signal back on his phone.

Storm Erik rages on for most of the night, battering the tiny cottage so ferociously that Dan can hear it through his noise-cancelling headphones as he curls up in bed. In the morning, the silence is eerie. Post-apocalyptic, in a way; Dan definitely feels like the only survivor of a nuclear bomb as he pokes his head out of the front door to check what the situation is.

There are leaves and tree branches and debris scattered everywhere. The outdoor bin that he’d been putting his recycling in is half way down the path, rubbish littering the ground, so Dan sighs, slips on his trainers and trudges out to pick everything back up. The clouds still look a little ominous, but it’s dry, at least, and the wind has died down to a light breeze. Dan draws in a deep breath and makes a decision. He’s going walking today. Erik can get fucked.

After shoving on his jumper, coat and two pairs of socks to protect his feet from his boots, Dan starts his trek up the gravel path (which has now mostly turned to mud) towards the Lester farmhouse. It’s intact, at least, bar the wooden gate that leads down towards the back garden which has blown completely off its hinges. Still. It could have been much worse. He licks his dry lips, then carries on towards the main road.

“Dan?” 

Dan turns, startled, and sees Kath appearing from around the side of the house, carrying a pile of broken branches and sticks in her arms. She smiles at him tiredly and drops the stack beside the stone wall. 

“Didn’t blow away in the night, then?”

“Came very close to it,” Dan says, squelching back down the path to join her. “Is everyone alright?”

“Oh, fine. Well. Nige is laid up in bed - I told him he shouldn’t have been out in all that yesterday, the cold plays havoc with his chest these days,” she replies with a sigh, glancing up towards the top left window of the house. Then she shrugs, aiming for nonchalance and missing it by a country mile. “So Phil’s in charge today and I’m mucking in where I can.”

“Shit. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Kath chuckles, shakes her head. 

“No, pet - thank you for offering, but I’ll be honest, you’ll probably be more of a hindrance than a help if you don’t know what you’re doing. Phil and I will be fine, plus Pete from down the way has said we can borrow a couple of his lads if we need it.” She frowns, blinks at him, as if only taking in his walking boots, beanie hat and coat for the first time since they started speaking. “Where are you off to?”

“Oh, uh… I just figured I’d go for a bit of a walk. As I’ve been cooped up for two days.”

“Well you make sure you stay local, love, don’t wander off too far. They’ve said the weather is going to turn again this afternoon, and it’s going to be bad all the way to Saturday.” She reaches out for another big hunk of broken tree branch off to the left, chucks it onto the pile, then straightens up and rubs the splinters and wood shavings off the front of her jumper. “Oh, I almost forgot to ask - I’m going to do a big shop in a minute, is there anything you need getting in?”

“Oh God, no, thank you but please don’t put yourself out for me,” Dan insists, holding his hands up as if to physically block her path. Kath just laughs, shakes her head, rolls her eyes; the exact same expression he’s seen her pull on Phil a few times. 

And, when he gets back from his forty minute walk around the countryside, just as the heavens are beginning to open again, there’s a full Tesco bag on his doorstep waiting for him.

\---

Kath was right - it rains all the rest of the week. Luckily, Dan is an introvert with mild agoraphobia who lives in an equally rainy city, so he’s got plenty of ways to keep himself occupied: reading, playing the Sims, watching YouTube videos on the spotty WiFi, lying in bed consumed by existential dread. 

He gets some more writing done too. He works on his book, of course, but he also manages to crank out a purely descriptive piece as a bit of a warm-up exercise. Too twee, Dan decides when he reads it back later, like something he’d submit in his GCSE English class; all flowery language and daft metaphors about how the sea is white horses galloping along rocky shorelines. Still, for his first attempt at something that’s not sarcastic or introspective, it’s not the worst thing he’s ever written

Dan wakes up on Saturday morning with a start. It must be early because there’s barely any light coming through the flowery curtains - unless, of course, the clouds have gotten so thick that they’ve engulfed the sun completely. At first he’s not sure what startled him awake, until his groggy mind starts putting the pieces together. There was a bang at the front door. 

Dan hauls himself out of bed, throws on his hoodie over his naked torso, yawns loudly into the sleeve and pads downstairs in bare feet. 

It is early: seven in the morning according to the clock in the hall. Dan frowns and reaches under his sweater to scratch lethargically at his stomach, then spots the source of the bang. There’s a piece of paper sitting on the doormat, torn off from what looks like an envelope. Dan picks it up, flips it over and reads the writing on the back.

 **_Dan_** , is printed in large, round letters, **_come down to the Peacock tonight at about 8pm - live music, drinks, M & C will be there - should be a laugh! Phil x_ **

This is followed by a scribbled drawing of himself and Phil, smiling broadly, limbs bent in some weird little jig. Dan chuckles and shakes his head, folding the paper up before heading back upstairs. If the paper gets slipped into his notebook for safe keeping, he won’t be telling anybody.

Dan pulls back the curtains and lets out a long sigh of relief at the scene in front of him. It’s calm. The sky is just beginning to lighten as the sun starts waking up for the day, sending dusky streaks of pink and orange across the few remaining clouds. The trees, or what’s left of them after Storm Erik, barely move in the breeze, and there’s the distant sound of a cockerel from a nearby farm. Dan’s never heard that before. He must usually sleep right through it. 

There are no excuses this time. He's going to take a drive around the island if it kills him.

Dan tours in a circle. He starts up towards Ramsey, singing along loudly to Muse's back catalogue. He gets there by half eight, so he parks his car by the port and dips into a nearby café for breakfast (a round of hot buttered toast and scrambled eggs, veganism be damned, and the biggest pot of tea he's ever seen). Next he hugs the coastline down the A2 all the way to Laxey, where he turns off to hunt for King Orry’s Grave because one of the travel guides in the cottage told him to. It’s interesting, inasmuch as a tomb of an ancient Viking warrior can be, although Dan feels like a tit stood around staring at old rocks on his own, so he doesn’t hang about for long.

He makes it into Douglas just before lunchtime. It’s nice, Douglas; enough going on without being rammed with tourists like Blackpool or Brighton. There’s even a Starbucks. 

Dan sits on a bench on the Central Promenade, slurping on a caramel frappuccino and wincing at the brain freeze it’s starting to give him. There’s decent signal here, judging by how his phone keeps buzzing in his jeans pocket every now and then, updating him with a myriad of calls and texts and emails and Twitter notifications that he’s missed out on during his two weeks social media break. Dan watches the sea glitter in the midday sun, takes a deep breath, and pulls his phone out to put a call through to his mother.

She picks up on the second ring. 

“My little Bear! Aw, I’ve missed you, son.” His mum sounds genuinely pleased to hear from him. At least until she clucks her tongue and says, “Haven’t had a postcard from you yet, though.”

Dan smiles. _Little Bear._ His affectionate nickname as a kid, until he shot up past his mum’s height and the ‘little’ had to be dropped, unless brought out for special, sentimental occasions.

“Sorry, been a bit busy. How are you?”

“Good, yeah, good. Well - getting a bit hacked off with your brother. You know he’s thinking of becoming one of these… these _fruitarians_ now? Only wants to eat stuff that’s been harvested naturally. I’ve only just gotten used to the whole sodding vegan thing.” Her long-suffering sigh crackles down the phone. “Anyway. How’s your book coming along?”

“Oh, uh… it’s getting there. It’s taken me a while to figure out what I want to do with it, but I think I’m on the right lines now.”

“Good! I can’t wait to read it. The last book I read was absolute shit, one of these horrible murder mystery things-” 

“Mum,” Dan cuts her off before she can start rambling. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ooh, that sounds ominous.” 

Dan chews on a piece of dry skin on his lip, pulling at it until he can taste blood on his tongue. “It’s probably stupid, but… why didn’t you come to that end-of-year play my drama club put on when I was, like, eight?”

“Oh God, Dan, what sort of question is that?” His mum laughs, confused. She pauses for a second to consider it, then replies, “I guess I was working. That would have been around the time I had those two jobs.”

Well. That’s news to Dan. He frowns, swirling the paper straw around in the dregs of his coffee so that the ice cubes clatter against each other.

“I didn’t know you had two jobs.”

“Didn’t you? I used to work as a secretary from Monday to Friday, and I’d pick up the odd shift at Asda on the weekends. That’s why you went to your Nana’s on a Saturday after drama club.” 

“Oh.” 

Dan feels… winded, almost. Like he’s been hit with a reality he knew all along, but never put the pieces together. It makes sense, because of course it does; at the back of his mind, Dan can remember that weird beige and green tabard, and he can remember going food shopping and the cashiers knowing his mum by name. He must have been too lost in his own little world to make the link himself.

It explains a lot, too. Like why every Saturday afternoon was spent sat in his Nana’s lounge, munching on a ham and cheese sandwich and watching _The Wizard of Oz_ or _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ on repeat (the only films she seemed to own on VHS). It explains why his mum seemed so tired all the time, so quick to snap, so willing to let Dan indulge in hours on the PlayStation or wrack up a fortune in dial-up Internet bills just to keep him out of the way. It doesn’t necessarily excuse it, doesn’t make Dan feel any better or less weird and twisty inside, but it’s a start. 

“Why did you have two jobs?”

His mum sighs as though she’d rather be doing anything else than having this conversation right now.

“Dan, we were in a lot of debt. What you’ve got to understand is your dad and I were young and stupid once too. I was only twenty-four when you came along - we were living in a tiny shoebox of a flat and your dad got around on a moped, for Christ's sake. We knew we wanted you, of course we did, but I guess you just… arrived a bit earlier than we were ready for. Suddenly we had to find a house and a car and a _life_ to accommodate you. Then eventually your brother came along and- well. Working two jobs was just what I had to do for a little while to pay that off.”

Dan swallows thickly, but it’s like his throat has closed up. _Twenty-four_. Dan is twenty-eight right now, will be thirty in just over a year, and he can barely keep a houseplant alive for longer than a few months, let alone a whole human child. This all seems like stuff he should have _known_ , and the fact that it's all coming as a surprise makes him feel like a moron. His family really _are_ shit at communicating. Dan clears his throat, but his voice still wobbles enough to make him cringe at himself.

“Right. No, makes sense.” 

“What's all this about, Dan?” his mum asks, concerned. Dan shakes his head even though she can’t see it, takes a moment to get his emotions back under control.

“I'll talk to you about it when I get back. I've got to go now, I've got to find you a postcard.”

“Alright, Bear.” His mum pauses. “I love you. You know that, don’t you? I love you so, _so_ much.”

“Yeah, I know. Love you too, Mum,” Dan mumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. When they've hung up, he wipes the dampness under his eyes, blows out a long, shaky breath that turns white in the crisp sea air, and stands up. Keep moving. 

Dan spends the rest of his time in Douglas dipping in and out of the tiny, quirky shops along the front. He finds a postcard for his mum - one of those vintage ‘come visit the Isle of Man’ affairs that’ll look nice tacked up in her office - and scribbles a short note to her on the back with a pen he finds at the bottom of his bag. He buys some locally produced gin for Kath to thank her for everything (he’s not sure if she even drinks gin, but the bottle was too pretty to pass up). And it’s in an independent stationary store that Dan finds the most perfect thing for Phil: a beautiful hardback notebook. The cover is an inky, swirling blue, dotted with gold foil stars that create shimmering constellations, and inside is thick, lined paper that could hold all of Phil’s weird and wonderful ideas.

On a whim, seeing the notebook sitting on the desk in his bedroom as he gets ready for the evening, Dan grabs a pen and turns to the very last page. In hasty scrawl, he writes down his phone number and address. Just in case.

\--- 

Dan can hear the music from all the way down the street. A rhythmic _thump, thump, thump_. There are strings as well, he thinks, scratchy and energetic, and the distinct whooping and hollering of raucous, inebriated voices. When Dan pushes the door open to the Peacock he catches it against someone’s back, and it’s during his stuttering apology that he realises there’s absolutely no room. The pub is _packed_.

Dan’s breath leaves him in one quick, nervous rush as he tries to push his way through the throngs of people to get past the threshold. He can’t spot Phil, who is usually head and shoulders above most patrons, but before this can send him spiralling into anxiety there’s a flurry of movement and he’s almost knocked over as somebody throws their arms around his neck.

“Oh my _God_ , I’m so glad you’re here,” Phil says in his ear, a little breathless. He pulls back, still holding Dan’s shoulders, and grins nervously. “Sorry, I just… it’s been a mental week and I didn’t know if you’d gotten my note and it’s just really nice to see you and-”

“It’s fine,” Dan cuts him off with a laugh, patting his hand against Phil’s hip. “It’s good to see you too. It’s, uh… it’s a busy one tonight, huh?”

Phil rolls his eyes, then nods towards the bar to indicate Dan should follow him there. Along route, he picks up empty glasses and wobbles through the crowd with them balanced precariously between his fingers. There’s a band in the far corner of the pub, Dan can see now as they inch closer towards the heaving bar, armed with violins and guitars and a big hand-held drum. They’re chatting and swigging back pints of dark stout at the moment, but every now and then there’s the odd twang of a banjo or a quick, rhythmic patter of a stick against drum skin, overlaid atop joyous laughter and clamouring voices and muddy boots stomping on the tiled floor and hands clapping along to a rhythm that hasn’t even started yet. 

It’s insane. It’s _incredible_. Dan could go into any pub in London and find people staring gormlessly at the football on the TV, or at the fruit machines, or on their phones. Here, everyone’s smiling and talking and… _existing_.

Phil finally pushes his way behind the bar, so Dan leans across it to ask, “What the fuck is all this?”

“It’s called a cèilidh,” Phil says loudly back. Dan rolls the word over in his mouth: _kay-lee._ “It’s a Gaelic thing. We hold one once a month, we get a band in and stock up on Guinness. It always draws in a big crowd.”

At that point there’s a scrape of strings, and then music erupts in the room; it’s bouncy and bright and so Gaelic it’s almost funny. Dan watches the band, wide-eyed with wonder, before a finger poked into his cheek brings him down to Earth. He turns back to Phil, who smiles at him.

“Better get your order in quick before I’m swamped again.”

“Oh God, uh… I don’t like Guinness.”

Phil laughs. “I don’t think anyone _really_ likes Guinness. We have cider, if you still want to be authentic?”

“Sure.”

Phil pours out his pint of Magners and passes it over, waves his hand when Dan fishes out his wallet, then jumps right back into the fray of demanding customers. There’s a woman with him this time, about Phil’s age, and the two of them almost trip over each other in a bid to keep everyone happy. Dan feels physically exhausted just watching them, so he turns his attention back to the room.

The cider is cold on his tongue, fizzy and sweet, as it froths over his glass and drips down to his fingers. There are a few people up now, dancing, Dan thinks, although a lot of it involves stomping and clapping and jigging around as close to the beat as one can manage after a few pints. It’s so ridiculous that he erupts into loud laughter before he can stop himself.

Phil appears by his arm a few minutes later, pink-cheeked and slightly manic.

“Okay, right, that’s done for now - come and meet Martyn.”

And so Dan gets dragged back through the hoards of people towards a group gathered around a large, round table. In the middle is a man who bears striking resemblance to Phil, only fairer, and a small woman with a shock of curly, ginger hair. They smile as Phil approaches.

“This is Dan,” Phil announces with a flourish of his arm that hits Dan in the chest. 

“Ah, _you’re_ the famous Dan,” Martyn grins, standing up and leaning over the table to shake Dan’s hand. “I’m Martyn, Phil’s older, wiser, more handsome brother.”

“Much older,” Phil interjects, “Much, _much_ older. Practically middle aged.”

Martyn just laughs as he sits down again. They’ve got the same smile, the same way their eyes crinkle at the corners. He indicates the woman next to him. “And this is my good lady, Cornelia.”

“It’s nice to meet you at last,” Cornelia says in a soft, musical voice. “Phil’s not stopped talking about you since we got here.”

“Oh shit,” Dan says with a nervous laugh, at the same time Phil blurts out, “That’s _not_ true.”

“It _is_ true, Phil, you haven’t drawn breath,” Martyn says dryly. “I know more about Dan than I know about you.”

“You’re horrible and I hate you," Phil replies, but they’re both laughing with matching light giggles. There's a flurry of voices and movement, a mixture of 'you sit here, son' and 'catch you later, Mar' and 'couldn't get us another pint, could you, Phil?', and suddenly Dan's in a seat next to Cornelia. She smiles at him, props her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand. 

“Phil said you live in London as well?”

“I do, yeah, around Bermondsey.”

“Oh, not far from us! Do you know Los Banditos, down by the tube station?” 

Dan does: it's a tiny Mexican restaurant, bright and colourful and offering 2-for-1 margaritas seemingly all hours of the day. He nods. “I walk past it all the time. I’ve never been in, though.”

“You should, it’s amazing," Martyn joins in. "A friend of ours owns it, he always gives us free nachos whenever we drop by. I’m not just promoting it because of that, but they _are_ mind-blowing."

As is typical when meeting someone for the first time who lives a stone’s throw away, conversation falls to local lifestyle: how expensive topping up Oyster cards is these days, and whether Pret A Manger is really worth it, and the issues of gentrification as if they themselves aren’t contributing to the problem. Martyn and Cornelia are lovely and easy to talk to, and before Dan knows it he’s half way through his pint. 

“So how long have you lived in London for?” Dan asks, wiping condensation off his glass. Martyn puffs his cheeks out and frowns, thinking it over. 

“A couple of years now. I went over to England for uni when I was eighteen, spent a bit of time in Manchester, met Cornelia, then we moved down to London in about 2013.”

“Not thought about coming back and carrying on your family legacy?”

“I would _love_ to. I’d drop London in a heartbeat,” Cornelia says. Martyn just snorts and shakes his head.

“Yeah, Corn would be well in there if she got her way. Nah, I’m too much of a city boy now, I don’t think sheep farming is for me.” Martyn leans in conspiratorially and continues in a low voice. “It shouldn’t have to be for Phil either, I keep telling him. He can do much bigger and better things than holding down the fort here. About five or six years ago he nearly did leave, y’know. He wrote this… this script, a _Black Mirror_ style thing. It was bloody amazing, all interactive and that. I told him he should come and stay with us for a few months, see if he could do something with it, and I was sure I knew people who knew people who’d give it a read. He was so close to doing it and then…” 

Martyn pauses. Swallows. Smiles awkwardly and shrugs.

“Family stuff. Anyway, things happened the way they happened. Make plans and God laughs, as they say.”

Dan hums in agreement and glances around the pub. The music has quietened down, the crowds returning back to their groups for a natter or heading to the bar to refresh their glasses before the band starts up again. And Phil is nowhere to be seen. He’s not behind the bar when Dan leans up out of his seat to check over the mass of heads, and he’s not floating around either. Dan frowns and downs the last of his cider in three swift gulps.

“I’m getting another drink,” Dan says by way of excuse, shaking his empty glass. “It was lovely to meet you both.” 

Martyn and Cornelia offer their goodbyes and get absorbed back into their group of old friends and acquaintances. As Dan stands up and edges away from them, he spots Phil coming out of the back room behind the bar, and it’s now that Dan can see how exhausted he looks. There are dark circles under his eyes from behind his glasses, deep creases between his eyebrows as he frowns and, despite the furnace-like heat in the room, Phil is sickly pale beneath the pink flush across his cheeks. He bobs between tables, collecting empty glasses and bottles, so Dan slips through the crowds to join him. It’s only when Dan has four glasses clutched between his fingers that Phil notices what he’s doing.

“Dan-” he starts wearily, but Dan cuts across him before he can finish.

“Shut up and tell me where these go before I drop them.”

Phil leads the way behind the bar, shaking his head in silent reply to his co-worker’s raised eyebrow as they head to the back room, and starts loading up the industrial-sized dishwasher. 

“You alright?” Dan asks, passing Phil his own collection of glasses one at a time. Phil nods but says nothing, so he presses on. “Only I was talking to your brother one minute, and the next you disappeared.”

“I _am_ still at work, Dan. And there’s not much I can contribute to ‘which microbreweries are the best in London’ anyway,” Phil replies. He’s not sharp, not snippy and passive aggressive like Dan knows he himself can be sometimes, but there’s fatigue permeating through Phil’s voice that’s so unlike him. He takes another glass from Dan and stacks it with the others. “What did you think of Martyn?”

“He’s cool. He’s a lot like you, actually.”

Phil snorts, closes the glasswash and starts it up. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Not so sure he would.”

They’re quiet for a few moments, only the rattling of the glasswash and the muffled hubbub from the pub breaking the silence. Dan clears his throat and claps his hands together.

“Right. Glass collecting. Easy enough job for me to do, yeah?”

“Dan, you don’t have to do that,” Phil sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re on holiday, and it’s a party, so just… relax, would you?”

“Fuck off and let me help. Okay?”

Phil gives him a bashful smile, and bumps their shoulders together.

“Okay. Thank you. I’m sorry I’m being grumpy, I’m just… completely shattered. It gets a bit much sometimes, all these people and all the noise.” He rubs a hand over his forehead like it’s hurting him, closes his bloodshot eyes for a moment. Then, as if physically shaking himself out of his funk, he pushes his hair back off his forehead, grins and asks, “Have you ever tried a Cherry Bakewell cocktail?”

“Uh… no. Is that a real thing?”

“No idea. I made it one evening, just to see if it would work, and oh my God, it’s immense. Come with me.” 

A Cherry Bakewell cocktail, it turns out, is a lot of Amaretto and Jack Daniels mixed with cherry flavoured Coke. Phil pours it out in the same way he does everything in life - with abandon. He makes one for himself too, and they clink the glasses together before Dan downs a rather large mouthful. It’s sweet - like, ‘rot your teeth in your head’ sweet - and fizzy and the sheer amount of booze in it burns his nose and the back of his throat as it goes down. Dan coughs and splutters, which makes Phil laugh.

“Good, right?”

“It’s like drinking pure sugar.”

“Exactly! Alcohol tastes nasty anyway so might as well do something to make it palatable.” 

Dan giggles, because it’s the only thing he can do, which sets Phil off as well. They only stop when Phil’s co-worker, Izzy, digs an elbow into Phil’s ribs and says, “Make me one of those too or get back to work, you lazy sod.”

The night passes quickly. The music gets wilder, the crowd gets rowdier, and Dan feels woozy and warm and daft even though he’s not really been drinking because he’s been too busy sweeping up empty glasses off sticky tables. He’s _happy_ , he realises later, as he stands shoulder to shoulder with Phil behind the bar watching people dance and laugh and clap along with the frantic drum beat and lilting fiddles. Martyn and Cornelia are up by now, flushed and giddy as Martyn twirls Cornelia around until she collapses against him, doubled over with giggles. Dan grins and pokes Phil in the side.

“You going to join in?”

Phil laughs loudly like Dan’s told him some hilarious joke and shakes his head. “I can’t dance. Seriously, it’s like a medical condition. I’ll end up breaking either one of my limbs or somebody else's, and no-one wants that.”

Drunk and daring off life, Dan grabs Phil’s hand and drags him into the back room. They can still hear the music as it gets quicker and people whoop and whistle along. Dan takes Phil by the wrists and twists him in time with the frenzied beat, until Phil chuckles.

“What are we doing?”

“Dancing.”

“No, Dan, I really-”

“Shut your mouth and dance for me, bitch.”

Phil gives his shoulders an experimental shimmy, his hips a wiggle. “I’m not sure what I should be doing.”

“Don’t think too much about it. Just move your body in a pleasing, rhythmic fashion.”

“I don’t know about ‘pleasing’. Or ‘rhythmic’, now you mention it.”

“Alright, move your body in a completely jarring and off-putting fashion. I won’t give a fuck.”

Dan links the crook of his elbow with Phil’s and they turn in a clumsy circle, until finally Phil gives in. They jig and jump about like they’re in Third Class on the Titanic, grabbing onto each other as if that’ll stop themselves from falling over into a breathless, giggly heap. All of a sudden Phil freezes, one hand clutching Dan’s forearm and the other tangled into the bottom of his shirt, and he glances up into the top left corner of the room behind his steamed-up glasses.

“My aunt’s got CCTV in here.”

“Oh,” Dan says back. “Shit. Does she check it often?”

“Every morning when she comes in to do the breakfast shift.”

“Well I guess… I hope she enjoys the show?”

A bright, brilliant beam bursts over Phil’s face and his shoulders quake with laughter. Before they know it, they’re both bent double and leaning against each other in hysterics, until Dan panics he won’t be able to catch his breath and his stomach starts to ache. 

He’s happy. He’s so happy and stupid and giddy it hurts.

The night comes to a close at about twelve, despite slurring protests from the last patrons standing. Martyn and Cornelia stick around to help with the close-down, and between the five of them they manage to get the bar wiped down and mopped and cleared in record time. Izzy offers quick goodbyes and darts off as soon as they’re finished; Martyn and Cornelia take a bit longer to leave because Martyn won’t stop hugging everyone, but soon their taxi arrives to take them back to the Lester farmhouse. 

Then it’s just the two of them. Phil collects up the last few glasses, a dopey, sleepy smile plastered to his face, and as he goes to put them away Dan trails after him behind the bar. Phil returns from the back room and says, “Right. Should we get you home?”

As if struck by a very smart, big-brain idea, Dan leans in, takes Phil’s face in his hands and kisses him. 

Phil makes a tiny noise of surprise against his mouth, but when Dan moves back Phil follows him, capturing his lips again and tilting his head to the side to deepen it. He tastes of cherry Coke, and his hands are warm against Dan’s waist, and the hair at the nape of his neck is soft and silky where Dan’s fingers thread into it. Suddenly Dan is hit by awkward clarity and he breaks away, glancing around. 

“Hasn’t your aunt got CCTV here too?” he whispers, moving his hands to Phil’s shoulders.

“Uh. Yeah,” Phil mumbles sheepishly back. “Should we go?”

“You’re not walking me all the way back to the cottage, Phil, don’t be ridiculous. You need to go to bed.”

“I’m fine. And anyway, what if you wandered off in the dark and got lost out to sea? I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself.”

Dan snorts and rolls his eyes, giving Phil’s shoulders a quick squeeze before they move apart. “Fine. But when we get there I’m going to make you come in for a drink.”

“What have you got to offer?”

“Um… there’s half a bottle of white wine in the fridge, but it might have gone off by now. Tea, coffee, orange juice.” Not really palatable late-night drinks, he realises with a wince. “Or there’s hot chocolate?”

A pleased beam slides up Phil’s face. “Hot chocolate sounds brilliant.”

\---

Phil looks like he’s about to fall asleep at the table.

His cheek is resting on his hand, elbow propped on the scrubbed wooden dining table, and his eyes flutter shut despite his best attempts to keep them open. There are two matching mugs sat next to the kettle as it bubbles away, and the plug-in radiator hums in the background, making the room feel warm and woozy after the blistering cold from their walk back. Phil’s head bounces suddenly as he jolts awake, and he flashes Dan an embarrassed smile. Dan just chuckles and wanders over to him, lacing one hand into his dark hair and scratching at his skull with his blunt fingernails. Phil practically _purrs_ as he lets his head fall against Dan’s stomach.

“How's your dad doing?” Dan asks quietly. Phil hums, shuts his eyes again.

“Better.”

“Did you have to be in charge of the farm all week?”

“Only Wednesday and Thursday. But it's starting to get hectic because some of the sheep are giving birth prematurely so we need to look after them, and-” Phil breaks off to yawn loudly into his sleeve. He shakes his head as if to clear it and says, “Sorry. I'm so boring that I'm sending myself to sleep.”

“Shut up, panini head.” Dan tugs on the long part of his quiff. “You can't walk home like this.”

“What else am I supposed to do? I can't go knocking round at my parents' place, it's gone one in the morning.”

“Stay here,” Dan replies, as if it’s obvious. Phil leans back to peer at him, glances off to the side like he’s mulling the option over.

“I haven't got a toothbrush. Or pyjamas.”

Dan chuckles, pushes Phil’s hair back into some semblance of a style after causing it to stick up everywhere with his terrible attempt at a head massage. “Do you normally wear pyjamas to bed?”

Phil shrugs, bashful. “I like to be cosy.”

He settles instead for a pair of Dan’s sweatpants and the plain white t-shirt he wore under his jumper. They drink the hot chocolate at the dining table, talking in slow, lazy voices about nothing in particular, and when they’re finished they stand propping each other up in front of the bathroom sink as Phil brushes toothpaste around his mouth with his finger. Dan wrinkles his nose at him around his own toothbrush, so Phil pulls a face back at him through the mirror. 

It should be weird, how quickly they’ve fallen into a domestic routine. It feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Finally, they snuggle down beneath the duvet and the mountain of blankets that Phil drags out from under the bed. Dan’s laptop is open in the middle of them, playing _Kiki’s Delivery Service_ ; it’s one of their shared comfort faves, they came to realise, although Phil isn’t so much watching it as nodding off against Dan’s arm. 

“Should I turn this off?” Dan asks, giving Phil’s head the smallest jostle with his shoulder. Phil hums sleepily in reply, but when Dan turns back after putting his laptop away on the desk, he sees Phil sat up tapping away on his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Setting an alarm for the morning.”

“ _Phil_ ,” Dan whines. He clambers back into the bed again, sending Phil bouncing due to the sheer springiness of the mattress. “You fucking dare and you can go sleep in the barn with the sheep. _Why_ are you setting an alarm? Isn't Sunday your day off?”

“Technically.”

“So enjoy it, would you? You've fucking well earned it after this week.”

Phil sighs and puts his phone on the bedside table along with his glasses, then curls up on his side so that he’s almost nose to nose with Dan.

“I know, I’m sorry. I just worry. I convince myself that if I’m not there, something bad will happen to Dad and Mum won’t be able to deal with it on her own. I mean, I know that if something _did_ happen while I was there I’d be pretty useless, but I dunno - it just makes me feel better.”

“It makes you feel in control. Typical anxiety reaction.”

“I suppose.” Phil pokes him in the chest. “Is that your thing then? Armchair psychiatry?”

“No,” Dan says with a small smile. He shuffles around in the bed, getting himself comfy. “Hey, you don’t need to go round and help your dad out tomorrow because Martyn and Cornelia are there.”

“Shit, that’s true.” Phil thinks about this for a moment, then laughs quietly to himself. “Martyn hasn’t worked on the farm since he was eighteen.”

“Well there you go, bit of practice for him,” Dan says around a yawn, stretching out the kinks in his back. He snuggles back into the duvet and finds Phil grinning at him. “What?”

“You sure do wriggle around a lot.”

“Fuck off.”

“This is the first time I've shared a bed with someone in ages,” Phil muses. He taps his finger against the underside of Dan's wrist. “You'd better not snore.”

“Your mum'd better not snore.”

Phil snorts with affronted laughter. “She might well do. And what of it?”

“Go to sleep, you freak of nature.” 

But he leans forward, places on hand against Phil’s cheek, against the slight scratch of stubble, and kisses him again. He feels Phil smile against his lips as he kisses him back. 

In the morning, Dan wakes up to an arm around his waist and a nose pressed against his shoulder blade. When he checks his phone he finds it’s half past ten. With a small smile, Dan puts the phone down, wriggles further back into Phil’s hold and closes his eyes again. One more hour won’t hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the love and support so far, you guys are just the sweetest and your comments/reblogs make my day!! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter: brief mentions of animal death, discussions of homophobia, **s e x**
> 
> ps. I listened to 'movement' and 'nfwmb' by hozier on repeat while writing the sex scene lmao so yknow if you want to listen to them to complete the full immersion experience please feel free

Dan finds himself slipping into a routine on the island that is not entirely dissimilar to his one in London. The only differences are that life here is slower, quieter, with more time to think. And there’s one vital addition: Phil.

Dan wakes up at eight or nine, goes for a shower, has some sort of fruit preserve on toast and a cup of flowery tea. He writes from ten until five, occasionally taking breaks for another cup of tea and a peer out of the window to see if he can spot Phil and Crash hard at work. He stops for lunch when there’s a knock at the door, lets Phil in, and together they eat sandwiches and cakes made by Kath’s fair hands in the tiny kitchen. They talk about how Dan’s book is going, or how the new lambs are, or about TV shows and films they’ve both seen, or politics, or sometimes they don’t talk at all and just sit in comfortable silence. And without fail, standing amongst the floral wallpaper of the hallway, they share a kiss just before Phil has to go back to work, short and sweet with the promise of something longer and more indulgent to come (it does at about four when Phil leaves for the day).

Dan never realised life could be quite so peaceful. He’d never considered he could be the kind of person to get inspiration from rolling green hills and silence, or the type to kiss cute, clumsy boys who work on farms. There are elements of London that he misses - decent access to the Internet for one, a myriad of takeaway options for another - but he can’t say he’d be disappointed if time were to simply stop.

On Thursday, Phil comes round with homemade tomato soup and fresh tiger bread.

“I don’t like soup,” he explains as he clatters around the kitchen. “I think it’s ridiculous. Like, who wants to drink their meal?”

“It’s not just a meal, though, is it? Soup is like… it’s nourishment for the _soul_. It’s a warm hug in a bowl.”

Phil wrinkles his nose, shakes his head. “You’re insane. Hot liquid tomatoes, it’s disgusting. Mum knows I don’t like it but as you’ve now been bumped up to her favourite child, she thought you’d appreciate it more than me.”

“Well, I do,” Dan says, coming up behind him and sliding one hand under his jumper to press against his lower back. Phil hisses and wriggles at the cold sensation. “I’m a very pleasant boy and a joy to have in class, it’s been well-documented.” 

“Is it also well-documented that you’re a royal pain in the ass?” Phil retorts, but turns to kiss his cheek as that’s the easiest spot for him to reach. Phil heats the soup through in the ancient microwave, puts together a sandwich for himself from the provisions Dan has in the fridge, and they settle down in their respective spots at the dining table.

“Have your parents said anything yet?” Dan asks, blowing on a spoonful of soup before swallowing it. It’s amazing: creamy and tangy and exactly like a warm hug in a bowl. 

Around a large bite of peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich, Phil mumbles, “About what?”

“About why you keep sneaking off to have lunch with me, dingbat.” 

“Oh!” Phil almost chokes on his food from laughing. “Oh God, they knew about all this when we went round on Sunday evening for dinner.”

“Seriously?”

“Dan. You kissed me in full view of the security cameras in my aunt’s pub. You know, the woman who happens to be my mother’s sister? Of _course_ they knew about it before we’d even woken up that morning.”

“Oh.” 

For some reason, this had completely skipped Dan’s realm of possibility. He still gets a weird flutter of anxiety at being outed against his will, although it clearly didn’t make any difference in the Lesters’ viewpoint of him. The six of them spent Sunday evening laughing at Martyn’s hangover, and pouring over old family photos in the albums that Kath uncovered, and arguing good-naturedly across a game of Pictionary that got a little out of hand after Phil kept inventing new and ridiculous rules. Dan doesn’t realise he’s frowning at his bowl of soup until Phil taps him on the back of the hand.

“Hey,” he says with a small smile when Dan looks up at him. “It’s okay. They’re really pleased, actually - they worry about me quite a lot, being the literal only gay in the village.”

Dan snorts and resumes eating. “They’re alright with you, then?”

“What, with me being gay? Yeah, of course. I don’t think it came as any great shock to them, to be honest, not when the other boys were off playing football and dunking each other in mud, and I was on my own trying to talk to animals and saving up my pocket money to buy stationary or glittery bath bombs.” 

Dan laughs loudly at that - the image of little freckly, strawberry blond Phil sat amongst the sheep, a tiny gay Dr Dolittle making important scientific notes in his notepad. He’s happy too, to learn that Phil had a relatively easy time of it. It can’t have been all sunshine and roses, not growing up in a small, rural community like this, but it warms Dan through to know that Phil had a safe space here on Grianane Farm.

It makes a change, he thinks, to hear a positive family story.

“I sometimes think it makes my mum sad, though,” Phil muses, putting the remaining half of his sandwich down. “Not that I’m gay, just the idea that I might be lonely. I signed up for Tinder once, a couple of years ago, and only matched with two people within my age bracket on the whole island: one of them was actually eighteen and he’d set his age too high, and the other had a girlfriend and was looking for a threesome.”

“Yikes. Didn’t take them up on their offer, then?”

Phil rolls his eyes and smiles. “No, funnily enough, I didn’t. I’m _fine_ \- honestly, I’m too busy to even think about actively looking for a relationship - but it can be a bit isolating here sometimes. I had my first proper kiss when I was nineteen, and that was only because I’d gone over to Manchester for the weekend to stay with some friends who were at uni.”

“Wow. I suppose if you’re going to snog a guy for the first time, Canal Street is the place to do it.”

Phil hums, amused, and picks at the crusts on the edge of his sandwich. “I bet you get dates every other day, huh?”

“I mean, I hate almost all people and I try to avoid social interaction as much as possible,” Dan replies flippantly, stirring his spoon in his soup. “But no, honestly, I don’t. In London it’s the opposite problem - there’s almost too _much_ choice.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, first of all, a large percentage of gay online dating is hook-up culture. Obviously that’s fine, I’ve indulged in it a few times myself, but sometimes you get bored of unsolicited dick pics and ‘you up?’ texts. Then it’s just hard to know who to invest your time in. There’s nothing cringier than a first date, and it’s exhausting if you don’t click or they ghost you and you have to waste your energy getting to know someone all over again.”

“I guess so.” 

They fall into silence. Dan wonders if Phil is thinking the same thing he is: _getting to know you has been the easiest thing in the world._

Phil looks at him, smiles, that lovely, soft one that makes his eyes crinkle in the corners. “Finish your food, Soup Boy, it’s getting cold.”

On Friday, after their midday lunch break, Phil loiters in the hallway for a moment.

“D’you want to feed some baby lambs with me?” he blurts out, like it’s a secret idea he’s been sitting on for the last hour. Dan blinks, stunned, then answers the way anybody reasonable would answer.

“Uh, _yes_.”

So that’s how Dan finds himself sitting in the hay-strewn barn, a dozen or so sheep lying amongst the straw paying them little to no interest, while Phil pulls up lamb after lamb from a makeshift pen in one corner. 

“They’re premature,” Phil explains softly, giving the ears of the lamb sat on his lap a gentle rub between his fingers. “They should be born in March, really. These are the ones who aren’t big enough to be outside yet, or whose mum’s are too ill to feed them on their own.”

“Poor little lambies.”

“I know. Some of them are orphans - we had a couple of sheep die last week, what with the bad weather.”

“Don’t, Phil, you’re breaking my heart here,” Dan whines, inching closer. He reaches out a tentative hand and, after a nod of confirmation from Phil, gives the top of the lamb’s head a stroke. It’s not as soft as he was expecting, the wool wiry and fluffy under his fingers. Phil smiles and picks up the plastic bottle full of milk at his feet.

“I’d keep all the babies in here if I could,” he says, tilting the bottle down to meet the hungry lamb’s mouth and curling his arm around its middle to keep it steady on his thighs. “Dad doesn’t agree. He says they’re bred for this sort of climate and I shouldn’t fuss over them so much, but I can’t help it.”

He sounds sincere, as if his main reason for being put on Earth is to protect these tiny, lollopy creatures from the harsh elements. Dan knows Phil would have taken the deaths of the sheep hard last week, probably lost sleep over it which would've contributed to his exhaustion on Saturday. He wants to say something comforting, about how Phil did all he could and how his family gave them a good life, but it all just sounds so pathetic; instead Dan sits quietly and watches Phil feed the lamb in his arms with as much care and attention as he would a new-born child. When he's done, Phil lifts another one out of the pen and offers it to Dan.

“What if I hurt him?” Dan asks nervously. 

“Her. And you won’t. Just stay calm so she doesn’t pick up on your emotions, make sure you’ve always got hold of her so that she doesn’t topple off your lap, and keep the bottle pointed down. Easy.”

Dan scoffs at first, until the poor lamb is plonked unceremoniously across his legs. She peers up at him with those doleful dark eyes, wriggles a bit with nervous tension, and Dan's heart swells up his throat. He lets Phil guide the bottle in his hand into position; the lamb latches on without hesitation. 

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Phil asks as he sits back down again.

“Uh.” Dan adjusts the lamb so its gangly limbs aren’t digging too much into his thighs. “ITV are showing _Jurassic Park_ at eight. Other than that, nothing. Why?”

“Well if you can find a window in your busy schedule, do you fancy coming round to mine for dinner?”

“Aren’t you going to be working at the pub?”

“I’ve taken the night off. I feel like I deserve it after last weekend’s madness. Plus I was thinking about what you said yesterday, about how first dates are always super cringy.”

“You’re treating me to a cringy first date?” Dan grins, glancing up at him. Phil chuckles, does that nervous tick where he rubs the tips of his fingers into the palm of his hand. 

“Well. I’m hoping it _won’t_ be cringy but also I’m talking about myself here, and I am the master of cringe.”

Dan laughs out loud at this. The lamb finishes the last of the milk, so Dan takes the initiative to pick her up into his arms - she’s much more docile now that she’s well fed and warmed through from the furnace-like heat Dan constantly radiates - and places her back into the pen. “Sounds good. So long as we can still watch _Jurassic Park_.”

“Oh, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

\---

Phil’s house is quite basic from the outside - a small, narrow building with beige pebble-dashed walls, squashed shoulder to shoulder between two equally bland beige houses, one with net curtains in the windows and the other with a variety of dead potted plants by the front door. At first, Dan feels like he must have got the wrong place when he pulls up in his rented Ford Fiesta on Saturday evening; Phil should be living in a cute rustic cottage, or a quirky bohemian apartment, or something wild like a _lighthouse_ , for Christ’s sake. But, when Dan gives the front door a tentative knock, Phil throws it open with a beam. 

He’s wearing the most hideous purple and black stripy jumper Dan’s ever seen, and overlaid on top is an apron printed with an absurdly muscular man in tight Speedos. 

“Fucking hell,” is all Dan can splutter out around his loud, barking laugh. 

Phil giggles too, pulls the apron out as if he’s showing off a designer gown at the Met Gala. “Hot, right? Come in.” 

It’s only once Dan is past the threshold that he feels like this actually is Phil’s abode. It’s a bit of a mess, but in the best possible way. The hooks under the stairs in the narrow hallway are bursting with a variety of denim jackets and thick coats and a fetching bright yellow rain mac, so much so that Dan has to dump his own coat and (presumptuously packed) overnight bag on the floor. Phil leads them through to the dining room and lounge - both rooms are small, yet cosy, separated with a large archway. The walls are a light sea blue and there’s a lot of pale wooden furniture, but the calm coastal vibes are offset with colourful framed posters and bright cushions and potted plants and curious knick-knacks on every available surface. 

“Nice place,” Dan comments, doing a full revolution in the living room.

“Thanks. It’s not really my style, but because it’s a rental there’s not a whole lot I can do with it. I’m not even supposed to have these up.” Phil bats at a metal poster above the dining table so that it swings on its hook. It’s a pastel-coloured vintage print of Tokyo.

“You ever been?” Dan asks, nodding at the poster.

“Nah. I’d love to - Japan is like, number one on my list of places to visit. But until I can afford to go, I’ll just stare longingly at it on Google Street View.” 

“With the amount you work? I’m surprised you’re not able to afford your own private jet out there.”

Phil gives him a small smile, but doesn’t reply.

“You look really good,” he says suddenly, eyeing Dan up and down in an altogether unsubtle way. “Like, _really_ good. Like, ‘I should have gone to more effort’ good.”

Dan _does_ look good, he must admit. He’d bloody better, because he spent the best part of an hour and a half dithering between three different shirts and two different types of footwear. All his best clothes are back in his apartment; the expensive avant-guard stuff that throws gender to the wind. Dan didn’t think he’d need to pack much more than a huge collection of knitwear and a few different pairs of sturdy boots on this trip. Tonight he settled on a tight-fitting navy button up dotted with white and pink cherry blossoms, his staple ripped black jeans, and a pair of high-top sneakers with thick white soles. The sheer amount of product in his hair has made it go curlier than usual, swooping up in weird brown waves, and he spritzed himself so liberally in Jean Paul Gaultier that it’s surprising Phil’s house plants haven’t wilted from the overpowering smell. 

It’s worth it to see the look in Phil’s eyes and the distracted half-smirk sliding up his face. Dan cocks his hip, places one hand on it and the other against his head. 

“Why, thank you. Plus I think you’ve made more than enough effort. I mean… that is definitely an _interesting_ jumper. It looks like it was made during an explosion in a witch’s knitting shop. Or it’s suddenly 1998 and I’m watching _Changing Rooms_ but the colours on my TV are inverted.” 

Phil’s shoulders shake with laughter, and he plucks at the offending garment. “Right, now I feel self-conscious. Stay there, I’m going to change.” 

He slopes off into the hallway and Dan can hear the thump of him taking the stairs two at a time to his room. And so, Dan is presented with a prime opportunity to go snooping.

There are so many _things_ in this house it’s hard to decide what to land on first. It’s a far cry from Dan’s sleek, minimalist apartment, that’s for sure. There’s a wobbly shelving unit in the corner stacked high with board games that Dan has never heard of, and a Pikachu plush on the mantelpiece, and a rainbow crochet blanket thrown over the sofa, and a peace lily that’s almost as big as the table it’s sitting on in a pot that says ‘ _you grow, girl’._ There are framed photos dotted about too: old snaps of baby Phil and his family, some of Phil as a teenager with his ridiculous long hair and his equally oddball-looking friends, and one very sweet black and white print of Phil from a few years ago carrying a tiny ball of fluff in his arms, a proud Border Collie sitting obediently beside him.

Dan is still holding the picture frame when Phil re-enters the room.

“What are you looking at?” is the first thing he blurts out, clearly nervous that it might be another embarrassing photo from his old emo days. Dan flips it around to show him and Phil’s expression melts. “Oh! Aw, that’s my baby boy when he was a puppy.”

“Who’s this?” Dan asks, tapping one finger against the older dog.

“That’s Willow, his mum. She used to be the sheepdog before her back legs went funny and we had to train Crash up.”

“Willow,” Dan repeats, smiling, as he puts the frame back down in front of the fireplace. “Your idea?”

Phil pushes the _Buffy_ DVD box set closer towards the TV with his foot, as though that’ll do anything to hide it from view.

“Might have been. Anyway.” Phil does a small spin, arms open to present his updated outfit. “Do I make the cringy first date grade?”

The knitwear disaster has been replaced with a smart, burgundy shirt that sets off his pale freckled skin beautifully. He’s ditched the glasses too, gone with contacts instead, and his dark hair looks extra bouncy and shiny tonight in its tousled quiff.

He’s _stunning_. But, because sincere compliments often get stuck in Dan’s throat, he just gives him an appreciative nod.

“Not bad, Philly, not bad at all.” Dan comes closer, curls his arms around him in a proper hug of hello. He rests his head where Phil’s shoulder meets his neck, and he inhales the scent of lime body wash and something sandalwood-y and incredibly Phil. “Holy shit, you smell nice.”

“Thank you. I showered today.”

“For me? Mate, you shouldn’t have.” They break away and Dan claps his hands together. “So what are we having for dinner, Mr. Ramsay?”

“Oh, only the _highest_ calibre of fine dining.”

Phil takes them through to the kitchen. There are dishes stacked up in the sink, and coffee cup rings on the chopping board, and blobs of jam on the worktops, but there are also a selection of herbs growing in pots on the windowsill and a chalkboard on one wall listing all the things Phil needs to buy on his next shopping trip. 

Phil grabs something off the sideboard and turns, holding up an Old El Paso box. 

“Fajitas! Amazing.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Phil replies, reading the back. “It says all we need is chicken - I bought Quorn, don’t worry - vegetables, seasoning, tortilla wraps and four amigos. I’ve got everything else, but I don’t have a clue where we could buy amigos at this late hour.” 

“You’re a dork and you’re _not_ funny.”

It’s not a very scathing insult when said between uncontrollable giggles.

They set up camp on the living room floor, sat opposite each other between a picnic of Mexican food, a family sized bag of Doritos and two large glasses of white wine. Phil laughs at how Dan piles up his fajitas with every available topping, and Dan rolls his eyes when Phil admits he bought queso dip despite hating cheese. They put _Jurassic Park_ on in the background, but it goes mostly ignored because they talk too much to pay attention to it. 

“Where did you get this from?” Dan asks of the rainbow striped throw that’s currently being used as their picnic blanket. Phil has already managed to drop BBQ sauce _and_ salsa onto it, cursing under his breath both times as he wiped the blobs away with a damp tea-towel. 

“My friend Bryony made it,” Phil explains, hand rummaging around in the Doritos bag for spare crumbs. “She’s amazing, she’s got her own Etsy shop and everything.”

“Does she live around here?”

Phil frowns, shakes his head, licks Dorito dust off his thumb. “Nah, not any more. We went to school together, but then she moved to England for university like pretty much all the kids in my year did. I can’t even remember where she’s living now. I don’t think it’s far from London, actually.”

Dan hums and rubs the blanket between his fingers. It’s soft, clearly made of something expensive like alpaca, rather than thick, scratchy sheep's wool like the one in his bedroom at the cottage. “You never went to uni, I take it.”

There’s silence at this. Dan glances up to see Phil taking a long gulp of wine, prolonging the pause.

“No,” he answers eventually. “I wanted to. Still want to, if I’m honest, although I don’t particularly relish the idea of being a ‘mature’ student. But it’s a long story and it’s only going to make me feel shitty, so do you mind if we just… don’t go there?”

“Sure,” Dan replies softly. He’s not about to start delving into Phil’s past, not when he’s got his own university-related trauma going on, although the mystery surrounding why Phil bothers to stay on the island at all is starting to drive him bonkers. Dan almost wants to shake him - he wants to yell that life is too short for family obligations that you don’t want to do - but he chooses instead to top up their glasses of wine and ask, “So what’s for dessert? There’s no way a greedy sugarholic like you didn’t get dessert.” 

“Ouch. You’re right, but ouch,” Phil says, an affronted hand to his chest. He scrambles up off the floor, taking the empty plates with him, and comes back with two bowls of Ben & Jerry’s and a plastic bag from Waterstones.

“I went into Douglas earlier to get a few bits and look what I found,” Phil says with a pleased, slightly smug grin as he places the bowls on the blanket and fishes out two very familiar books.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

Phil is holding his books, _Dan’s_ books, in his hands, and Dan wants nothing more than for the ground to swallow him up. He’s proud of his work, of course he is, but seeing the physical copies in front of him now fills him with the same cold dread that kids in movies must get when their crushes find their secret diaries. Phil flips one over, hums and says, “The titles aren't half long, aren’t they? 'Here, Queer, Filled With Existential Fear', and other songs by Fall Out Boy.”

“Rude. Scandalously rude. I worked hard on that.”

Phil makes a happy humming noise in the back of his throat, turns the book back around to look at the front covers again. “I can’t wait to start reading them.”

“And I can’t wait to drink so much wine it numbs me to this mortifying experience.”

\---

By the time _Jurassic Park_ ends and _Family Guy_ begins, they’ve polished off two bottles. It hasn’t numbed Dan to the embarrassment of knowing Phil will be reading his most personal moments (that he willingly shared with the general public), but it _has_ served to make him feel giggly and stupid. One of Phil’s contacts rolled inside out in his eye and he had to make a mad dash to his room to dislodge it and grab his glasses, and Dan found the whole situation so ridiculously funny that he couldn’t stop crying with laughter for ten minutes. 

Now he’s starfished across the blanket, listening to his own Spotify playlist that he attached to Phil’s speakers - ‘songs for when it’s 1am and you’re drunk and in the bath’, a situation he finds himself in more often than he cares to admit - while Phil sits by his head and plaits his hair with those lovely, long fingers. 

“Ow,” he mumbles when Phil tugs a little too hard. 

“Sorry. Your hair’s really stiff. What have you put in it, beeswax?”

“I’ll beeswax your mum.”

“You go near my mum and I’ll beeswax your face.” Phil tugs his hair again, harder this time, deliberately. He goes to take a sip of wine, blinks in surprise when he finds the glass empty, and tips it upside down as if to really illustrate this point to Dan. “We’re all out.”

“Oh gosh, whatever shall we do?”

“I can… get us something else to drink?”

“Good thinking, Batman. You do that.”

Phil makes them both gin and tonics, only it's made with lemonade because he's all out of tonic, and he also doesn't have any lemons so he put grapes in instead before remembering grapes really have no flavour but by that point he was too flustered to fish them out. Phil tells him all this as Dan sits up and takes his first sip, which results in him laughing so hard he sprays gin over Phil's carpet. 

“I think you’re actually going to kill me one day, Phil,” Dan gasps, banging himself on the chest.

“Shit, I hope not. You’re in, like, my top five favourite Dans.”

They settle on the blanket again. Dan pulls his legs up into a lotus pose and stretches his arms out, his back popping and frizzling as he moves. Phil shivers beside him as raises his glass to his lips, shakes his head. 

“I don't understand how you can sit like that.”

“I have wide-set hips,” Dan explains, bouncing down on his knees with the palms of his hands. “Good birthing hips, as my yoga instructor once told me. I think that was his way of coming on to me.”

Phil giggles, a drunken high-pitched noise, and slops gin over his fingers. He rests back against the couch, knees bent up to accommodate his absurdly long legs. The tips of his socked toes slide underneath Dan's thigh, and he wiggles them slightly so that they press into his jeans. Dan smiles and catches Phil’s ankle, rubbing his thumb backwards and forwards over the sharp bone.

“And did it work?” Phil asks. 

“Did what work?”

“His chat-up line. He tells you that you have good birthing hips and you immediately fall into bed with him, I assume.”

Dan snorts. “No. Don’t get me wrong, I would have done if he’d have just… asked me out like a normal person. But the whole ‘birthing hips’ thing killed that avenue stone dead.”

“One time when I was visiting Martyn in London, we went out and I got chatted up by a really nice American guy. He was fit too, so I didn’t fully understand why he was talking to me, until I realised he thought I was Benedict Cumberbatch.”

“Fuck off!” Dan howls, rocking backwards with laughter and almost toppling over. 

“Honestly! In his defence he was quite drunk and he wasn’t wearing his glasses, he said it didn’t go with his outfit, so he couldn’t see very well in the dark.”

“And what did you do?”

Phil pauses at that. Nibbles at his lip sheepishly. Dan leans forward and gapes at him.

“Philip. You _did_ tell him you weren’t Benedict Cumberbatch, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly. I told him I was flattered, signed a napkin for him and then left to throw myself into the Thames.”

That’s the gauntlet thrown. Conversation soon evolves into heated competition of who has the most toe-curlingly cringy queer stories, both inside and outside the closet, and the two of them get so loud and animated that one of Phil’s neighbours actually bangs on the wall to get them to shut up. Phil winces, puts a finger to his lips, but he grins nonetheless. 

“Let’s call it a draw.”

“Okay, fine, it’s a draw - we’re both horrifically embarrassing gays. Ugh, I’m sorry we upset your neighbours, but _fuck_. Do you know how nice it is to just… just be able to talk to people about stuff like this?” Dan huffs, slamming his hands down on the floor. He rubs at his eyes, suddenly feeling woozy and weirdly emotional, and confessions spill from his lips before he has chance to contain them. “Y’know, I didn’t come out to anyone in my family until three years ago.”

“Seriously?”

Dan nods, leans over to tap his first book that’s sitting on the other side of the blanket. “You can read about it all in there. Actually, that’s part of the reason why I had to tell them - ‘Mum, Dad, there’s something you should know: I’m writing a book about what it’s like to be gay. Oh, and also I’m gay’.”

Phil lets out a weird aborted laugh, like he’s not sure if he should find that funny. “And what was their reaction?”

“Mum was fine with it - she was more annoyed that I didn’t tell her about the book sooner, to be honest. Dad was… well. I don’t know, he didn’t really say a whole lot.” 

“Oh.” Phil extracts one foot, presses it instead against Dan’s thigh in a weirdly comforting gesture. “I’m sorry. D’you talk to him much?”

Dan shakes his head, places a hand over the top of Phil’s foot. His socks today are teal and printed with tiny rolls of sushi. “Nah. Only when I have to - birthdays, Christmases, things like that. I know he’s only a product of his time or his upbringing or whatever, but there’s nothing like eighteen years of homophobic comments to kill a relationship dead.”

It’s like a dam breaking, small cracks of water leaking through until the pressure gets too much and it all surges out. Dan’s brain is desperate to purge everything now he’s started, and his alcohol-loosened mouth is only too happy to comply.

“I hated myself for a long time as a kid. On top of the fact that I’m loud and annoying, I’m also a flaming homosexual, so I’m sure you can imagine how the kids at school responded to a target like _that_.” 

“You’re not loud-” Phil starts, but Dan cuts him off with a wave of his hand before he can finish.

“Shut up, I am. And I used to believe what the people around me said about queer folk. That… it's a lonely life. Always hiding, always waiting to be hurt. I genuinely thought that I didn't deserve love because that’s what I’d been told, and that I'd never settle down or whatever because all gay men want to do is fuck each other and offend old grannies with their lifestyles.”

Dan takes a breath, because his words are starting to wobble. Phil sits up at this, suddenly tense, so he flashes Phil a tiny smile that he doesn’t believe in and gives the top of his foot a reassuring squeeze.

“I don't believe that any more, obviously. It's taken me a lot of therapy to get over everything. And now I've… I've got queer friends who are married and have children and a mortgage, for God's sake. I have some who are in committed polyamorous relationships, and some who are aromantic and don't want to settle down at all. Fuck, I've got some friends who just bloody enjoy shagging around. And that's _fine_. There's no one way to be queer, there's no right way or wrong way, and it should all be absolutely fine. Right?”

“Right,” Phil whispers, and it’s only through his quietness that Dan realises just how much his own voice has risen to a strangled, fervent pitch. Dan sighs, presses the pads of his fingers against his closed eyelids, and deflates like a balloon as all energy is sapped out of him.

“Sorry. I just get… really intense about this stuff.”

Silence. Then a soft voice says, “Come here.”

Dan goes to him partly out of willingness, partly because he gets man-handled until he’s collapsed against Phil’s chest. Dan wraps his arms around his waist and lets out a long, juddering exhale, sinking into the warmth and surprising strength of Phil’s hold.

“You're right,” Phil says, so quietly that Dan feels the rumbling vibrations of his chest against his ear more so than hears his actual words. “About all of it. And you are deserving of love, just as much as any of us. There’s… fuck, Dan, there’s so much about you to love.”

And that’s it. The dam finally breaks. The tears form and leak down his cheeks quicker than Dan can register it, and the only thing he has the strength to do is turn his face into Phil’s lovely burgundy shirt and sob. Phil lets him, bless his heart; he seems to know that what Dan needs right now is to be held, so he just rests his chin on the top of Dan’s head and curls his arms tighter around him to anchor him in place. They sit like that for a while, Phil rocking him gently and rubbing small, soothing circles in his back until Dan has cried himself out.

“That’s it, no more gin for us, huh?” Phil chuckles when Dan finally moves back. Dan groans, embarrassed, and presses a hand to his forehead.

“God, I’m sorry. That was so pathetic.”

Phil smiles, shakes his head, wipes the remaining dampness from under Dan’s eyes with his thumb. “It wasn’t. We all need a damn good cry sometimes. You okay?”

Dan opens his mouth to reply but the words get stuck. Instead he focuses on how close Phil’s face is to his own, and on how his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and how Dan’s hand is splayed against his chest and it feels warm and solid under his fingertips. Dan inches forward, tentative but unable to stop if he tried, and captures those lovely, soft lips with his own. 

Phil allows it; he kisses him back with a slow openness that they’ve never had before. He traces his hand down the length of Dan’s spine and, almost subconsciously, allows his fingers to trail the strip of skin just above his jeans. Suddenly he tenses, and Dan moves away to survey him. 

“Is this alright?” he whispers, as if he’s at risk of breaking the spell if he makes his voice too loud.

“If it’s alright with you,” Phil murmurs in reply. Then he shifts, winces, and grins apologetically. “Although... do you want to move to my room? My back isn’t going to forgive me if I stay on this floor for much longer.”

Phil’s bedroom is much the same as the rest of the house: cluttered, slightly chaotic, almost bursting at the seams with mementos and memories. Dan’s eyes glaze over it all, however, because he’s focused too intently on Phil’s face. He takes in the sharpness and softness working in confusing but beautiful contrast, and those big, blue eyes, and that one specific mole on his right cheek that Dan can’t help but press his lips to before mouthing his way down the long column of his neck towards the juncture where it meets his shoulder. They fall onto the bed, undressing with an air of calm inevitably, although Dan notices Phil’s fingers shake as he undoes the button on his jeans. And then Dan’s on his back amongst soft sheets that smell of hair product and faint remnants of lavender detergent and inherent male muskiness, and Phil is asking him _what does he want?_

What _does_ he want? He wants it all. He wants to learn Phil’s body, every inch of it, every freckle and scar, in slow, sweltering hours until the sun starts to rise. He wants to feel those long, delicate fingers on him, _in_ him, making him pant and squirm and cry out in release. Dan wants to indulge so completely in what it means to make love to another man, it almost hurts. 

He vocalises this as coherently as he can, and Phil listens, because of course he does. Then he dips down to Dan’s neck, and Dan lets him, even though he usually squirms away and cringes whenever anyone touches there, but when Phil bites at the part where his pulse is thumping frantically all Dan can do is groan and lean his head back to offer better access. They make do with the small, sad supplies that Phil has to hand, and then he’s sliding one, two slicked fingers into him and Dan trembles as he grips tightly onto Phil’s biceps 

“Okay?” Phil asks, mouth close to his ear. Dan can only nod his affirmative, and gasps when Phil bites gently at his earlobe, catching the hoop earring between his teeth, and finally crooks his fingers and moves them back and forth.

It’s slow, agonisingly slow; none of this is designed to be wild and furious and over in minutes. Phil toys with him, smirking as he watches Dan hiss and whimper under his ministrations, teasing his speed between frustrating languidness and quick intensity that leaves Dan tensed up and mewling for relief. Occasionally Phil slows to a complete stop so he can push Dan’s sweat-damp curls off his face or kiss him with soft, tender heat. It seems to take a lifetime, but eventually Dan can feel that tell-tale roll of tension and pleasure in his stomach, his thighs shaking and fingernails biting into Phil’s skin as it builds to a crescendo within him, and he comes with a strangled moan that gets lost against Phil’s lips. 

“Oh fuck,” he gasps after a few moments. Phil has rolled away to clean them both up, so Dan takes a moment to catch his breath, wet his gluey lips, stretch out his legs to rid himself of the cramp building up in the back of his thighs. Phil settles beside him again, presses a small, chaste kiss to the rosy spot Dan knows has built up on his cheek.

“How was that?”

“You’re a bastard,” Dan says with a wobbly grin. He taps his knuckles against Phil’s chest. “Your turn. What do _you_ want?”

“Don’t worry about me, honestly, I can sort myself out.”

But Dan is desperate and curious. He almost aches with how much he wants to watch Phil writhe, to see the arch of his back and the movement of his hips, to hear the noises he could make. He shifts onto his knees before Phil can protest again, bends to trail his lips up the inside of his thigh, and a jolt of mischievous energy zips down his spine as he teases his tongue against the soft, tickly spot just under his navel.

He wants to hear Phil _beg_.

“Please,” Phil whispers, as though he can read Dan’s thoughts. 

And oh, he is beautiful. He’s like a Renaissance painter’s muse, with his smooth, pale skin and lithe body that moves so exquisitely under Dan’s fingers and mouth even if it can’t move quite so well to music. He makes these choked, stuttering gasps like they’re being punched from the depths of his stomach, and he bites his full lower lip and clutches at Dan’s curls hard enough to hurt. He’s quiet when he finds his release, a small whimper buried into the crook of his elbow, and he takes him longer than Dan did to catch his breath and move his arm away. 

“And _I’m_ the bastard?” he croaks. Dan huffs out a tired laugh, tugs the duvet from beneath them both so that they can curl under it, then flops down next to him. 

“The biggest bastard on the whole island.”

Phil chuckles wearily, curls the arm caught under Dan’s head up to brush at the nape of his neck with his fingertips.

“How are you feeling now?”

“Uh. Good. Shattered.”

“Eloquent as ever, I see.”

“Fuck off, I feel like my brain is dribbling out of my ears.” Dan turns to bury his face against Phil’s chest. “I just know I’m going to be hungover tomorrow, too. I can feel it already.”

Phil tuts, tugs gently at the short hairs at the back of his head. “Two bottles of wine and two large gins will do that to you. Should we brush our teeth and drink some water before we fall asleep?”

“I mean. That _is_ the sensible option.”

“... or should we just stay here?”

“That is a _better_ option,” Dan sighs. His eyelids feel too heavy to prize open now, and the way Phil keeps stroking his hair is only making it harder not to slip into deep, peaceful unconsciousness. That’s all Dan wants now; so, he gives into it.

\---

At some point during the night, someone must have broken in and shoved old sawdust down his throat as he slept, because Dan wakes up with a mouth like the bottom of a birdcage. 

Dan has nobody to blame but himself, he knows this, but hangovers really are the most miserable experience so he indulges in his suffering for a moment. He’s sweaty and disoriented, only able to focus on the intense pounding sensation above his left eye and the rolling nausea in the pit of his stomach. Phil snores lightly next to him, limbs thrown out at odd angles, a knee digging into the small of Dan's back. As much as he hates the idea of moving, it's enough to make him realise he really needs a wee, so Dan extracts himself from the covers, pulls on his old pair of undies that are lying in a heap on the floor, and makes slow steps towards the bathroom like a new-born deer. 

After a piss, two paracetamol stolen from Phil's medicine cabinet, and a quick swill of mouthwash, Dan feels slightly more human. In the mirror he spots a dark bruise against the pulse point on his throat, and when he presses two fingers against it it throbs deliciously. Dan can only roll his eyes and curse the heated flush that prickles up his neck and across his cheeks.

He ambles back to the bedroom and collapses down next to the unconscious lump on the other side of the mattress. The movement jostles Phil out of sleep, and he groans, one hand coming up to cover his face. 

“Why did we open the gin?” he grumbles. Dan just snorts and shakes his head. 

“We were enjoying ourselves.”

“Oh, is _that_ what we were doing?”

With all the grace and co-ordination of a rag doll with cement limbs, Phil hauls himself up into a sitting position and grapples with the bedside table for his glasses.

“Going for a shower,” he says, voice raspy, as he stands on wobbly legs. “And maybe the sweet embrace of death. If I'm not back in an hour, just leave me.”

“Roger that,” Dan yawns back at him. He must nod off again at some point waiting for his return, because he's abruptly jerked back into the land of the living when Phil sits down on the bed again. His black hair is still damp and flopping into his eyes, his face has regained some colour, and he’s actually put on new underwear and a plain grey t-shirt. He leans over Dan to place a steaming mug on the bedside table. 

“Made you a coffee.”

“You're an angel of the highest calibre, Phil Lester,” Dan sighs and buries deeper into the warmth of the duvet. Phil curls up under it as well, so they're lying face to face. He smells of fruity shampoo, and minty toothpaste, and something so inherently comforting and Phil-like that Dan can't help but breathe in deeply. Phil smiles, sleepy and half-formed, and reaches out one finger to touch the faint indent on Dan's cheek. 

“I love this so much.”

Dan smirks, and Phil brushes over where the dimple deepens. “D’you remember christening it last night?”

“Did I? What did I name it?”

“Derek. Derek the Dimple.”

“Amazing,” Phil laughs. He retracts his hand, rubs the sleep out of his eyes instead. “What time is it?”

Dan stretches behind him to grab his phone off the side table, wincing at how it causes his tender head to throb. “Uh… just past nine. But if you even _think_ about going round to the farm, I’ll karate chop you in the neck. And then I’ll go and lock all the doors and swallow the key.”

“Alrighty then, that’s me told. I’ll stay right here.”

“Good. It’s very noble of you to go and help your dad out on your one day off a week, but I do think you’re being incredibly selfish. You haven’t once considered what my needs are today.”

Phil smirks, tugs gently at one of Dan’s wild sleep curls. “And what are your needs today?”

“For starters, I need you to hold me tenderly like I’m a sickly Victorian lady dying from consumption. Because that’s how I feel right now.” Dan rolls over until he hits Phil’s body and hears him grunt, forcing him to open his arms and allow Dan safe refuge against his chest. “And I desperately need fried food.”

A crease appears between Phil’s eyebrows as he thinks this request over. “I can make us pancakes?”

“Yes,” Dan gasps like that’s the best idea he’s ever heard. “Have you got bacon? I need salt, and I need grease, and I really, _really_ need to eat meat right now.”

“Oh, well if it’s salty, greasy meat you’re after...” 

Dan throws his hand over Phil’s mouth with such force that Phil lets out a high-pitched giggly squawk against his palm and rolls them both over so that they come dangerously close to falling out of the bed. 

And, amongst the screeching and the soft bedding and the tickling fingers and the shrieky gasps of laughter, Dan prays yet again for time to just simply stop, so he could stay here on this island, in this bed, with this man forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just to clarify! i love phil's jumper with every fibre of my being and i want it on my body but i know dan has reservations about it and also the term 'explosion in a witch's knitting shop' was too fun to pass up lmao


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter: references to depression and illness of a family member

Dan’s apartment is on the fifth floor of a moderately sized building in Bermondsey - a one-bedroom, one-bathroom number where the lounge overlooks Southwark Park and the bedroom backs onto the train lines. It’s a classy place; maybe not ‘penthouse suite’ levels of classy, but it has sleek wooden flooring, a walk-in shower and a big stainless steel fridge that is very rarely stocked. Dan himself owns an assorted collection of designer clothes, an upright electric piano and a Tempur-Pedic mattress he’s often begrudging to leave in the mornings.

Dan has a smattering of friends, both in the city and over the world gained through the power of the Internet. He meets up with his closest friends regularly enough, for coffee or for cocktails, and although he’s not certain he would die for any of them, he’d definitely stick up for them in a fight. He calls his mum once a fortnight and his Nana once a week, just to check in with them. He’s had a series of very nice, very normal relationships that have often fizzled out for very boring reasons: a lack of things in common, not being on the same path in life, or generally just losing interest in each other. 

Dan has a whole city at his fingertips. When his legs physically itch with restless boredom, he goes wandering around the National Gallery, or Camden Market, or Hyde Park. He’s travelled a fair bit too, to America and Australia and across Europe. 

Dan is lucky. He’s got a nice life. And yet, despite all of this, despite all the privileges that he can count on his fingers and toes, the intense ache of depression still insists on suffocating him. 

Sometimes it’s rough and unforgiving. It grabs him by the throat as he chews half-heartedly on dry toast in the morning, and claws him by the ankles back to the darkness of his bedroom. It sits on his chest and bites and scratches, hurting so much that he can only scream into his pillow or throw something at a wall in retaliation, until the cold light of day peeks in through the curtains to find him wrung out and ruined and shaking with the effort of waking up again.

Sometimes it’s soft, more docile, more pathetic. It curls up on his lap, hides in his pockets, nuzzles against his neck until it’s finally worn him down. It purrs to him about loneliness, makes him miss something he doesn’t know if he’s ever had before: socked feet in laps and good-morning texts and tea-warmed lips pressed to his forehead. The concept of being loved unconditionally. 

On Monday, Dan wakes up with two startling revelations at the forefront of his mind. One - this is his final week on the island. Two - depression has not reared its ugly, dark head in the entire time he’s been here, until right now.

Dan groans and covers his eyes with his hand. It’s a bad one today; it’s always a bad one if he can feel it take physical hold in his body. There's nausea swirling in the pit of his stomach and a tightness across his chest like he's caught in a vice. He knows the tricks to get over it - have a shower, eat something, move his body, do some mindful meditation - but the only thing he can pull out from the static in his brain is that he needs to stay right here, curled up amongst the safe, sleep-warm covers. So he does. 

Dan slips back into unconsciousness quite easily, although his dreams are vivid and manic and leave him feeling even more queasily disoriented when he resurfaces at midday, particularly when he realises somebody is knocking at the door. Not somebody. Phil.

That’s what really breaks him. The idea of Phil, stood on the doorstep with a tupperware of homemade goods and a small, expectant smile on his face. The idea of him knocking the door again - there it is, one, two, three sharp raps on the wood - this time a puckered crease of confusion between his eyebrows, before turning around and making the slow walk back to the farmhouse to eat lunch on his own. Dan can’t explain why the image makes his eyes well up but it does, and yet he just doesn’t possess the strength to get out of bed and see him today.

They haven’t talked about it before. Dan leaving. If Dan is being honest, it completely slipped his mind until this morning: the knowledge that in five days, 120 hours, 7000-odd minutes, he’ll be back in London. Dan won't even get one last Sunday evening with the Lesters. That thought just makes him feel sick and miserable all over again, full to bursting with something like grief.

He stays in bed all day, only regrettably leaving once for a piss and again to hunt for food that'll take him minimal time to prepare. On his way to the kitchen, he spots a folded up piece of paper on the doormat, and he picks it up on the slow trudge back to his bedroom with a plate of peanut butter toast.

It’s from Phil, because of course it is. His big, childish writing takes up a whole A4 side of white printer paper, probably nicked from his parents’ office. 

**_Danny - hope you're ok! I knocked round at lunch time but you didn't answer so I figured maybe you'd gone out on a walk or something. Also I realised that we spent literally the whole weekend together so maybe you needed a break from me lol. I hope you've had a very pleasant Monday! Phil xxxxx_ **

Is it normal to feel intense chest pain at the sight of kisses inked in biro? Dan scowls at his own patheticness, folds the paper back up to place between the pages of his notebook, and crawls into bed again.

Tuesday slips by in much the same way, apart from the indulgent two-hour long bath he takes in the afternoon. Maybe Phil knocks around for his usual lunchtime appointment, or maybe he doesn’t; Dan can’t hear anything through his headphones (this time his playlist of choice is ‘songs for when you’re too sad to listen to other people’s voices’, a collection of soft instrumentals and movie scores). 

Dan doesn’t mean to ignore Phil intentionally, except maybe he does. It’s just easier this way, he thinks, to pretend the growing ache of desperate need doesn’t exist until hopefully, _hopefully_ it just goes away on its own. 

The thing is, Dan has never _done_ long-distance relationships before, unless he counts the three weeks he was still officially with his high school girlfriend after they’d moved away to their respective universities (and somehow, he doesn’t count that). Dan loves instant gratification too much to even consider long-distance. He loves the idea of slow walks and quiet conversations around museums, and matching takeaway coffee cups in the park, and taxi rides taken at 2am just to feel familiar arms around him, just because he _can_. 

Phil won’t be a taxi ride away. He’ll be a plane away at best, and a long car journey followed by a ferry crossing away at worst. Plus there’s nothing to prove that _this_ , whatever it is they’ve formed here, would carry on working enough to justify a long-distance anything; this lovely, warm bubble they’ve created on the Isle could easily pop in the cold reality of London.

 _It wouldn’t,_ his brain teases in whispers. Dan sinks down amongst the foam until the water reaches his nose.

On Wednesday morning, the world ends.

Or, it doesn’t, but for a brief, startling moment between sleep and wake, it feels like it’s ending. Dan is wrenched into consciousness by the sound of several sharp bangs, and in his semi-lucid state wonders if World War III had been announced during the night without him knowing. But then it happens again, a persistent fist rapping on the front door, until Dan is forced to roll out of bed with a groan, throw on a hoodie and stumble downstairs to answer it.

Phil is stood on the doorstep, his arms crossed over his chest and a pinched expression on his face. He gives Dan a quick look up and down.

“Oh good, you’re alive.”

Dan slumps against the door frame, rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper. He doesn’t have the energy to explain himself, not really, but he tries anyway. “Yeah, sorry. I, uh… I get like this sometimes.”

“I know. I’ve started reading your book.” Phil’s face softens, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “Can I come in?” 

With a one-shouldered shrug, Dan moves away to allow Phil access into the house. Phil walks with purpose straight towards the kitchen, and sets his sights on the pile of dishes built up in the sink. Dan huffs as he watches Phil pull up his sleeves, squirt Fairy Liquid over the dirty crockery and actually begin to do the bloody washing up for him.

“Phil, you don’t have to-”

“I know I don’t,” he cuts across him, placing the freshly washed plates onto the drying rack. He wipes his hands on the nearby tea-towel and turns to face Dan, leaning back against the cupboards. “My mum’s given me the day off and a set of strict instructions: I need to check that you haven’t died, I need to force you outside to get some fresh air, and I need to make sure that you eat something proper.”

Dan frowns, scuffs his toes against the stone floor. “How does your mum know that I’m not already eating properly?”

“Trust me, she’s got a weird sixth sense when it comes to food.” Phil stands up straighter, nods towards the staircase. “Right. Have a shower, get dressed, and then I’ll take you around Peel for the day. There’s a castle and everything.”

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

“I don’t _want_ to babysit you, thank you very much. I want to spend time with you, actually, because I-” The pause bubbles thickly between them, as Dan imagines a multitude of ways that sentence could have ended. In the end Phil just huffs and smiles, defeated. “Just go and get dressed, okay?”

Dan wants to move. He wants to say something. Instead, the heavy concrete feeling in his body and his brain gets worse, until he’s left dithering in the middle of the kitchen with his mouth open, trying to form words that just won’t come. But Phil, he gets it. He looks at him, _really_ looks at him, not with confused pity or alarm or plain old disapproval, and moves the two steps it takes for him to close the gap between them. 

“D'you want a hug?” Phil asks, voice soft.

Dan closes his mouth, opens it again, pauses, blinks, closes his mouth once more, then nods. 

Phil is possibly the best hugger on the entire planet, Dan has decided. He barely waits for Dan to prepare himself before he gathers him up in his arms, squeezing him with just enough force to ground Dan in his body again. Dan’s eyes flutter shut and he lets out a long exhale, head bowed to press his nose against Phil's shoulder. He breaths in the softness of lavender laundry detergent, the sharpness of the outdoors, and something so intensely and unexplainably like home he nearly starts crying. 

“You know you've got me, yeah? You really, really have,” Phil murmurs quietly into his ear. Dan just hums backs, too scared of what emotions might bubble up if he tries to speak, and catches his fingers tighter into the wool of Phil's jumper. He hangs on like a baby koala until he feels like he's not about to burst into pathetic tears, throat hurting from the effort of trying to keep them down, and finally pulls back. 

“Thanks,” Dan mumbles, brushing any stray dampness from his eyes. “I needed that.”

“I could tell,” Phil laughs, not unkindly. “I think I've got bruises on my back now.”

“The reality of that is so unsexy, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” He nods towards the stairs again. “Just hurry up and get ready, yeah? I haven’t had breakfast yet and I’m _starving._ Ooh, have you ever had French toast before? There’s a new café in town that’s just started doing it and oh my God, it is _elite_ tier.”

For the first time in three days, Dan smiles and fully believes in it.

\---

The French toast was elite tier, even if its cloying sweetness has left Dan with sticky syrupy hands and a queasy feeling in his gut. He combats the latter with another serving of tea, this time in a takeaway cup, and a long, slow walk along the coastline towards Peel Castle.

“It’s Viking era,” Phil explains as they stroll. “We learnt about it in school when we were doing the Vikings in history. It was owned by someone called King Barefoot, which I always thought was weird.” 

“He sounds like a Hobbit.”

“He _does_!” 

“A Hobbit Viking king. I’d pay good money to watch a movie about that.”

Phil hums, amused. The castle comes closer into view, looking quite noble against a backdrop of blue sky and thick, white clouds. Seagulls cry overhead; another thing that makes Dan twitch now, but he knows he’ll miss like hell when he’s back home in London. To stop himself from spiralling into that rabbit hole any further, Dan tucks his hand into the crook of Phil’s arm and squeezes. 

“So what else can you tell me about Vikings? I think they’re so fucking hot.”

Phil grins. “Right? Imagine a load of big, hench Thors running around the island.”

“Oof. What a time to be alive. Pillage _me_ , Viking daddy.”

Phil physically recoils in horror at Dan's lack of filter. “Disgusting. Never say anything like that again.”

“No, you're right, that was a bit uncalled for,” Dan winces and nods, but then they're giggling, arm in arm, caught up in their own private, stupid world. 

“I reckon I’m from Viking stock, y’know. Just call me Philly Lestgard.” Phil draws himself up to his full height, stares off into the distance with a proud fist against his chest. He looks so ridiculous Dan can’t help but scoff and shove him hard enough that he stumbles across the bridge towards the castle.

There’s something haunting and beautiful about the ancient ruins. Dan’s trainers tread into spongy, emerald grass and he trails his fingers against stone that has seen a thousand years of human history go by. It makes him feel small, somehow. A brief speck in the universe, tracing patterns into the same walls as Viking nobles. King Barefoot could never have predicted that one day, a millennia into the future, some big, maudlin gay would be roaming his halls and staring longingly at the lovely boy that has sent him into such unnecessary emotional turmoil. The thought makes Dan chuckle, however dryly.

“I filmed a video here once,” Phil tells him, turning around and walking backwards so he can smile at Dan. “A Level Film Studies, we had to make our own short movie. Mine was like this… this weird historical horror thing. All Dutch angles in black and white, that sort of crap. I made Bryony dress up like a Tudor queen and I drenched her in so much fake blood it dyed her skin red for days.”

Dan grins. “Amazing. Please tell me you still have a copy of it, because I _will_ bring the popcorn.”

“Oh God, it’s probably on my old laptop somewhere. I remember it got an A, although it did make one of the girls in my class cry.” 

After an hour of mooching around the castle, they walk down the pier towards the edge, stopping off for an ice cream from a tiny kiosk because Phil’s sugar addiction clearly knows no bounds. They perch on a wall, shoulder to shoulder, staring out at Peel from across the gully of shimmering blue water. 

“Can I ask you something?” Dan asks suddenly, before his brain is able to engage with his mouth. Phil makes a surprised noise around his Flake but nods.

“Sure. Although I’m all out of Viking facts, I’m afraid.”

“Well, shit. Never mind then.” Dan nudges Phil’s shoulder with his own. “No, it’s not that. All your friends that you grew up with have moved away from here, right?”

“... Right.”

“And your brother moved away.”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Dan shrugs, gestures around him with one arm. “Why have you stayed?”

Phil releases a tired, drawn out sigh, stretches his long legs in front of him and crosses them at the ankle. He takes a minute to consider the question, watching the sea lap against the edge of the pier with a frown and tapping his fingers against his knee. 

“I never planned to stay,” he settles on eventually. “I applied for university when I was eighteen, same as everyone else. York was my first choice.”

“You’re obsessed with bloody Vikings,” Dan offers with a tentative smile. Phil, thankfully, chuckles and releases some of the tension in his shoulders.

“I know, it’s a curse. Anyway, finishing my A Levels and then moving to York to do English Language was the plan. And then that spring, my dad collapsed.”

“Oh shit.”

“Mm. We were out in the fields one weekend, and he just… dropped like a sack of spuds. I ran over to him, obviously, and it was so scary - he was completely grey and I couldn’t get him to wake up at first, I honestly thought he’d died. But we managed to call an ambulance and he spent about a week in hospital. After that, I just couldn’t bring myself to leave in the summer. I figured I’d take a gap year, help Dad until he was completely better, earn a bit of extra money while I was at it and give university another stab the following September.”

Phil presses his lips together. His ice cream has started to drip down his fingers; he turns to the bin next to him and chucks the whole thing away. Dan’s chest aches with guilt for forcing up all this clear emotional trauma, but at this point he just can’t stop himself. 

“What was wrong with him?” he asks softly. Phil shrugs, licks the last dribbles of ice cream from his hand. 

“The doctors didn’t know. Stress, I think they put it down to. It’s a small island, you’ve got to remember, and it was the mid-2000s so medical technology wasn’t super brilliant. So I carried on at the farm for a bit, and then my gap year turned into another year, and then my aunt took over the pub so I started picking up extra shifts there to help her out too. I kept working on my own stuff - scripts, movie ideas, things like that - but suddenly I was twenty-five and all these big plans I had were still just that. Plans.”

“And then Martyn asked you to come to London.”

“Ah, he told you about that, did he?” Phil asks with a wry smile, squinting at Dan through the sun in his eyes. “Yeah, he offered to put me up in his spare room for a bit. I think he felt guilty, for moving away and effectively leaving me stuck with the farm.”

“Why didn’t you go? It would have been ideal - I bet Martyn knows all sorts of cool, creative people in the media world.”

Phil nods in agreement. “He does. But- well. My dad got ill again. He’d never really gotten _better_ after the time he collapsed, if I’m honest, but that year he really went downhill. Eventually one doctor actually took his concerns seriously, and that was it then. Cancer. Severe enough that they gave him a year to live.”

“Phil,” Dan breathes, leaning against his arm in some modicum of comfort. “Shit, bub, I’m sorry.”

Phil just hums sadly. Dan puts his hand out, palm facing the sky, and lays it out across Phil’s thigh. With a barely-there smile, Phil places his own hand against Dan’s and threads their fingers together. For a few moments they just gaze out across the water, with nothing but the distant shriek of seagulls to break the silence. Dan would be quite content to leave the conversation there; he’s smart enough to link the dots, to figure out that Nigel must have defeated the odds yet Phil was still reluctant to abandon his family and the livelihood that’d been thrust upon him. But then Phil draws in a deep breath and continues.

“He’s fine now, by the way. The hospital had to fly him over to Manchester to get proper specialist treatment - I think they tried out some new wonder cure on him. Anyway, he’s been in remission for about four years now.” Phil scuffs his boot against the floor, kicks a small rock into the sea. It lands with a satisfying plop. “I guess I could have left after his all-clear. I’ve got the money for it, I’ve been saving up to move away since my mid-twenties. But I’m thirty-three now. It’s scary, uprooting your entire life, and I’m worried I’m just too old for all that.” 

“Uh, have you seen the state of the media industry? It’s dominated by nothing _but_ old, white men, so you’d be fine,” Dan scoffs. He gives Phil’s hand a squeeze. “What would happen if you did leave?”

“My parents would have to sell the farm.”

“And what do you think they would do if they didn’t have to focus all their time and energy on the farm anymore?”

Phil smiles at that, a proper one, a beam that seems to light everything up like he’s the fucking sun incarnate.

“I think Dad would get back into art again. He used to paint a lot - watercolours and that. He’s amazing.” Phil leans forward and points towards a parade of pastel buildings across the water. “And Mum has always said her dream would be to open up a tea room, somewhere over there on the seafront. A proper one with fine china and those little finger sandwiches.” 

“Fucking hell, Phil. I might be completely overstepping the mark here, but… d’you not think you’re all just clinging on to something for the sake of it?” 

“I guess. But it’s history, you know? I have nightmares of my great-great granddad hovering over my bed and haunting me for not being man enough to keep his family legacy alive.”

“No offence, but _fuck_ your great-great granddad. He’s dead, mate. You’re the one that needs to live.” 

Phil takes pause at that. He sags back against the bench, as though hit by the sudden weight of clarity. After a moment, he peers at Dan and smirks. “Wow. That was very profound. Have you ever considered going into writing?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “And have you ever taken anything seriously? Like, for once in your life?”

“Not if I can help it, no.”

\--- 

It shouldn’t take them long to roam around Peel, but Phil insists on giving Dan the exclusive, one-of-a-kind Phil Lester tour, which features such highlights as ‘my old primary school’ and ‘the wall I crashed my car into during one of my driving lessons’ and ‘the allotments my friends and I used to hang out in where we found a bunch of dirty porn mags’. By the time they’re finished, the sun is beginning to set, so they stop off at the chippie for polystyrene cartons of hot, golden chips and gravy and walk back to the cottage. 

After they’ve finished eating, in a moment of vulnerability that’s been building within him for days, Dan curls his arms around Phil’s waist and presses his forehead against his shoulder and murmurs, “Stay with me tonight? Please?” 

They set up camp in the living room. All the blankets, duvets and pillows in the cottage get thrown onto the floor, and while Dan constructs a nest for them both, Phil sneaks across to his parents’ house to raid their DVD shelves and snack cupboard. 

“It’s like a sleepover,” Phil grins, pink-cheeked and giddy in his boxers and one of Dan’s oversized t-shirts, tangled up within the sea of bedding. Maybe that’s what love, real love, deep and pure and unconditional love truly is, Dan thinks. Just one long sleepover with your best friend.

He doesn’t say this out loud, of course. Instead he throws a piece of popcorn at Phil’s head and laughs at his failed attempt to catch it in his mouth.

They watch _Shaun Of The Dead_ , even though it makes Dan cry and Phil has to peek out from between his fingers at a lot of it. When that’s over, they alternate between a Channel 4 documentary on dogging and old reruns of _Would I Lie To You_ , but mostly they just talk, lounged out on the floor Gemini-style with their legs intertwined amongst the blankets, and when they don’t talk they kiss, soft and slow, as if the world has simply stopped turning for them.

During one of their quiet moments, caught up in the story of ‘Tony’ and his sexual antics in the back seat of his Vauxhall Astra, Phil pokes Dan’s shin with his foot and smiles. “Fancy making me a brew?”

“Uh, no, not really. And anyway, it’s-” Dan fishes his phone from out of the covers to check the time. “Gone eleven. You can’t have tea this late, it’ll keep you up all night.”

“Fine, I’ll rephrase. Fancy making me a hot chocolate?”

“Hm. Still no.”

“Danny,” Phil whines, wriggling around in the sheets like a spoilt toddler. “Please? I’ll come with you.”

“Surely you coming with me negates the purpose of me having to get up and make you a hot chocolate?”

But, of course, they both end up in the kitchen, because God forbid they ever exist in separate rooms for more than a few minutes. Phil leans back against the counters while waiting for the kettle to boil, so Dan goes to him, pressing their bodies against each other so closely it makes Phil grunt in pain, but he settles his arms around Dan’s hips anyway. His hands slide down to rest on Dan’s ass and, seemingly without thinking, Phil begins to tap out a rhythm as he leans to the side to peer out of the kitchen window.

“Oi. I’m not a set of bongos,” Dan grumbles, face squished against the spot where Phil’s shoulder meets his neck. Phil just giggles, but stops his ass-drumming and pokes Dan in the side instead.

“Do you feel up for an adventure?”

“Depends. Do I have to get dressed?”

“Afraid so. Unless you feel like going outside in just your undies.” 

Dan makes a big show of groaning and rolling his eyes and stomping off to put sweatpants back on again, but he knows that Phil could suggest they leap into the sea together and lie underwater forever on the rocky floor and Dan would say yes. 

Coats and boots donned, hot chocolate safely decanted into a large travel mug, Phil’s phone torch enabled, and they’re ready to go. At least, Dan thinks they’re ready to go, until he takes one step outside and a pair of hands are clapped over his eyes.

“What the _fuck_ , man?” Dan yelps, stumbling in the sudden darkness. Phil holds him steady and his voice appears close to Dan’s left ear.

“I’m sorry! You can’t look, it’ll spoil the surprise.”

“If I don’t look I’m going to fall and break my neck, you dildo!”

“You won’t, I’ve got you. Just hold my phone and point it towards the ground, okay?”

Dan huffs, but allows Phil to guide him forwards. He can make a guess at where they’re heading: the gravel crunching under his feet eventually changes to the soft squelch of mud and slick grass as they begin to cross the field. There’s a bitter chill in the air - the potential of ice and a small smattering of snow in the morning, the weatherman warned - but Phil’s hands are warm against his face. They walk for a good few minutes, and just as Dan is about to complain about how ridiculous the whole situation is, Phil stops them and says, “Okay. I’m going to take my hands away now because I need you to climb this fence. But you _can’t_ look up, alright?”

“Alright, bloody hell,” Dan says, but he’s smirking, because he’s got a fairly good idea of what Phil’s brought him out to see. He does as instructed, navigating the damp wooden fences without falling on his ass and spilling hot chocolate everywhere, and then they’re off again down a path cut by years of footsteps amongst the coarse grass and wild heather.

It’s hard not to see them. The stars. They glitter fiercely against the velvet black sky, and the moon seems to tease them closer to the cliff’s edge, towards its shimmering reflection in the water. Eventually they come to a stop, not so close to the shoreline that they’d be in danger of slipping and falling to their deaths, but enough that they can stare out across the Irish sea and hear the lulling crash and hiss of waves breaking against rock. Phil drops to the ground and lies out across the grass. Dan can just about see his face in the dark as he peers up and grins at him.

“Come on. The view’s much better down here.”

Well, he’s come this far. Dan lowers himself to the ground and splays out next to Phil, so they’re parallel to each other.

And, _oh_. The view is so wondrous that Dan’s stuttering gasp becomes lost to the sharp, biting wind.

Hundreds of stars. Thousands. The more Dan looks, the more he can see, layers upon layers of shining balls of light, pinpricks of brilliant white and shimmering orange set into the purple bruise of the night’s sky. He’s never seen so many stars before in his whole life, has never seen stars at _all_ in London, and for a moment he can’t catch his breath at the sheer enormity of it all.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispers, and his voice shakes. Phil’s hand finds his in the dark and squeezes.

They stare in silence for a few moments, and then Phil starts pointing out constellations: Hercules and Bootes, Lira and Aquila. Great Bear and Little Bear. He trains Dan’s eye on the red giant Arcturus, the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, and on tiny satellites as they pass overhead. Sometimes he comes out with astronomy facts that Dan isn’t completely certain are true, but he’s so convincing that Dan doesn’t question it. 

“How do you know all this?” Dan asks instead.

“My granddad. He used to take me and Mar out here sometimes as kids, even though my mum flipped when she found out.”

Dan grins at the image of tiny Phil, smuggled out of the farmhouse on stargazing adventures in his wellington boots and puffer coat, listening with rapt interest to his granddad’s stories. 

It’s as they’re silently considering their places amongst the vastness of the universe that Dan realises something with startling clarity: he wants to lie here forever. He wants the earth to take him, to allow grass and heather and clover to grow until it covers him completely. He wants Phil to stay here too, so they can both be safe and protected from the harsh demands of the world in their little, mossy cocoon. But, of course, the spell breaks with just a few quiet, simple words from Phil.

“When do you go home?” 

“Friday. Half past two,” Dan murmurs back, eyes on the stars.

“Right.”

Phil turns his head and stares at Dan so intently that Dan has no choice but to blink back at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking. Do you know that Greek story? Of humans starting off with two of everything, like two heads and two arms and stuff?”

“Everyone's got two arms, Phil.”

“Oh yeah. Well, double everything, then. And Zeus split them in half because he thought they were too powerful, and now humans are plagued for eternity to find their other half.”

Dan snorts at that, turns back to lose himself to solar systems and galaxies once more. “I’m aware of the story, yeah. Why?”

“Well, like… do you believe in it? Soulmates and that?”

 _Does_ Dan believe in soulmates? His snap reaction is to scoff at the entire notion, which is often his response to philosophical arty-farty questions like this. He once made a boyfriend cry after he was asked the same thing and replied no, he didn’t believe in soulmates, and even if he did he certainly didn’t believe that _they_ were soulmates. In Dan’s defence, he had drunk an entire bottle of red wine and was feeling particularly sullen and surly that night. He’s not sure it called for his ex to snap at him that in order to find a soulmate Dan would have to have a soul in the first place. 

Phil is watching him expectantly, so Dan launches into his stock answer.

“I believe we are a mass of neurons and transmitters that power our individual meat suits, and sometimes the electrical currents firing off in our brains that create our personalities gel with other personalities, and very occasionally those personalities gel so well it can _feel_ like finding a soulmate.” 

The pause that follows this particular cynical declaration seems to reverberate through the night’s sky. 

“Wow,” Phil deadpans. “Romantic.”

Dan just smiles as he watches a satellite make its lazy way around the Earth. He doesn’t really want to admit his true answer: that his entire thesis on the falsehood of soulmates has been thrown up into the air since meeting Phil. “Why’d you ask?”

“No reason.” Phil rips up some grass and scatters the damp blades across the back of Dan’s hand. “Do you believe in shooting stars?”

“Do I _believe_ in them? I mean, yeah, I believe in the science behind meteorites, sure.”

“God, you’re so annoying. You know what I mean,” Phil laughs, reaching over to punch Dan in the arm. Dan grins back, fumbling around in the dark to catch his wrist so that he can’t inflict any more pain.

“No, I don't think that making a wish on a bit of space rock burning up in our atmosphere will mean it’s more likely to become true. But… I guess I believe there’s no harm in trying.” Dan turns to look at him. “How’s that?”

Phil pulls a face and wiggles his hand in the air. “Passable.”

They share the hot chocolate between them, clutching the warm flask to try and get some feeling back into their frozen fingers. The back of Dan’s sweatpants are damp, and his toes are starting to go numb in his boots, and he’s just about to suggest that they call it a night and head back to the cottage when it happens. A shooting star, bursting overhead with such brightness and such brilliant speed that both Dan and Phil can only let out strangled shouts in their surprise. 

“Holy _shit_!” Dan yelps, scrabbling for Phil’s hand and grasping hard. “Holy shit, did you see-?”

“Shut up, shut _up_ , make a wish,” Phil cries back in excitement, and, without pausing to consider what he’s doing, Dan squeezes his eyes shut and does exactly that. 

_Happiness_. Dan wishes for happiness. For himself, sure, if that’s possible anymore, but mostly for Phil. He so desperately wants Phil to be happy, to thrive and grow like Dan knows he can, even if this is it and they never see each other again. Dan breathes out slowly and opens his eyes, blinks away dizzying spots of white that take over the sky, then peers at Phil.

He’s still got his eyes closed, wishing so hard his mouth moves with unformed words. When he’s finished, he turns to stare back at Dan. His pale skin is almost luminous in the moonlight, and a small, soft smile dances across his face. 

Dan’s not sure who moves first. All he knows is that the grass tickles against his cheek, and Phil’s hair caught up in Dan’s fingers is damp, and his lips burn with such incredible heat it’s like kissing starlight itself.

\--- 

And then, in a blink, it’s over.

London is loud. Far louder than Dan ever remembers. He feels like an Arctic explorer taking his first tentative steps back into civilization when he clambers out of his Uber in front of his apartment. He forgot how many levels of noise there are in London - rumbling traffic and blaring horns and distant sirens and the constant thrumming of people, _so_ many people, all living one on top of the other.

The real world takes Dan some getting used to at first. He hides himself away for a week solid, unable to adjust to it all, living mainly off Deliveroo and whatever basic necessities he can scavenge from the corner shop three doors down. He’s not completely shut off from social interaction, however; he talks to Phil every day, sometimes for hours at a time until suddenly it’s gone midnight and Phil realises with a panic that he needs to be at the farm by six thirty. 

Phil came round to see him on his last day on the Isle. He’d offered to travel with Dan to the airport, until Dan pointed out how ridiculous an idea that was, so he reluctantly conceded. 

“Probably for the best,” Phil had concluded with a small, sad smile. “I would have ended up doing a _Love Actually_ \- running through security just to get to you before you boarded your plane.”

“Knowing you, you’d be tackled and strip-searched before you’d even broken a sweat.”

Dan had presented him with the constellation-patterned notebook at this time too. Phil handled it like it was made of spun glass, his eyes wide and wondrous in his face. 

“It’s beautiful,” he’d whispered, flipping the pages delicately like he was afraid they’d somehow fall apart in his clumsy hands. 

“It’s for you to write down all your ideas. Oh, and in the back I’ve put my contact details, if you want them. Address, phone number, email… I think I put my Twitter handle down too. I don’t know if you even _use_ Twitter, but it’s there if you want to stalk me or whatever,” Dan had babbled, praying that his overarching statement of _‘please keep in touch with me!’_ was clear. Luckily, Phil had just smiled warmly, leaned in to press a kiss to Dan’s forehead, and texted him a string of unrelated Emojis before Dan had even arrived at the airport.

It’s during Dan’s second week back in London that he fine-tunes the last parts of his manuscript. Phil is the first person to read it, even before Dan’s editor or his agent. He’s a helpful audience; he offers Dan advice on how to make sections read better, and sends him glowing praise when Dan is desperate for validation. 

“I love it,” Phil says over FaceTime one night, after finishing the final page in silence while Dan chewed on his fingernails in anticipation. “Dan, you… _fuck._ You’re so amazing.”

“Shut up,” Dan says instinctively, still nibbling at his cuticles. “So you think it’s okay?”

“It’s perfect. Honestly, I’m not just saying that because I think the sun shines out of your arse. It really says something important, you know? Look, _look_ \- it’s given me goosebumps!” Phil brings his arm up to the screen, points out the raised hairs amongst the freckles. He drops it again with a sigh. “Although I _don’t_ super appreciate how you’ve made me feel things.”

“You? Philip Lester, feeling genuine emotions beyond your sliding spectrum of cheerful and sunshiny?”

“ _Yes_ , Daniel, somehow you’ve unearthed genuine emotions in me. I dunno, it’s just… all the family stuff. It’s just given me a lot to think about.”

Dan hums, lets the moment linger in the air in case Phil wants to continue, drops it and tactfully moves onto something else when it’s clear he doesn’t. They haven’t talked much about Phil’s future plans since Dan got back; he’s been too wrapped up in book-world to ask. Dan just assumes Phil will tell him when, or indeed _if,_ there are any big decisions in the works. 

With Phil’s stamp of approval, Dan emails copies of his finished manuscript to his editor and agent. _Conversations with Little Bear:_ a book of letters, in a way, from Dan to his tiny, tender past self. Some parts are written in his typical essay style, where he flays himself alive with knives of sarcasm and introspection so that the public can feast upon his most embarrassing, emotional moments (and possibly laugh along while they’re at it). But some parts are softer. Some parts contain genuine pockets of forgiveness, and retrospection, and growth. He reminds himself that his parents were not superheroes, but rather human beings entitled to faults and fuck-ups just as he is. He reflects on how all his past mistakes, the ones he’s spent years torturing himself over, have led him quite neatly to where he is today. And, most importantly, Dan tells his little child self the truth. That he is, and always has been, deserving of love. And there is so much about him to love.

It makes his agent cry, which Dan thinks is a good thing.

Time bleeds by quicker in London. Before Dan knows it, it’s April, and he’s stood by the feature wall in somebody’s boutique apartment in Greenwich, clutching a glass of Prosecco to his chest and trying to force himself to listen to a stranger with purple hair who is telling him all about their new furniture upcycling business.

“And I found the most _darling_ old church pew in an antique shop in Peckham, so I think I’m going to break it down, sand it, and turn it into a drinks caddy. A sort of… ‘stick it to the establishment’ thing,” Purple Hair witters on. Dan smiles, nods along, desperately tries to remember whether they said their name was Stormy or Sunny, when suddenly his phone vibrates in his pocket. 

Dan pulls it out with such force he drops it on the ground, and that’s when he sees that Phil is calling him - not unusual in itself, but strange for it to happen without a text of warning first. 

“Shit, sorry, I just- I need to take this. But good luck! Y’know, with the shop and all,” Dan babbles, trying to keep his phone and his glass of fizz steady in his hands before darting off to find somewhere quiet. 

He weaves amongst people he doesn’t know very well, or doesn’t know at all but is told time and time again that he should _definitely connect with if he wants to further his career._ Dan refrains from rolling his eyes, and pushes his way out onto the balcony. Here people are draped over patio furniture, smoking roll-ups and drinking artisan gins or microbrewed beer. Someone actually has a guitar, and they’re playing a high-pitched, croaky version of a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

Dan would consider throwing himself over the railing and into the river if he wasn’t about to answer a very important phone call.

“Thank you,” is how he opens the conversation. Phil is silent for such a long pause that Dan has to check that he hasn’t accidentally disconnected him with his ear.

“For what?”

“For saving me. I’m at a party with a load of rich hipsters and I honestly want to shove a rusty fork through my ear and into my brain.”

“Ouch. Not the image I wanted to start this off with, but thank you.”

Dan smirks, rests one forearm on the balcony to stare out at the glittering lights of the city. “Sorry. What’s up?”

Phil clears his throat so loudly it crackles down the line. “Um… I may have done something stupid.”

Dan frowns. His mind becomes a zoetrope of terrible options: Phil’s tried to renovate his house and accidentally knocked down a supporting wall, or he’s shaved all his hair off, or he’s joined a cult by mistake and has just completed his first blood sacrifice. 

“What have you done?”

“Nothing bad, I promise! Well, you might not think that when I tell you. I, uh- I may have just bought flight tickets. From the Isle of Man to Heathrow.”

Dan opens his mouth, blinks, closes it again. He’s silent for a beat too long because Phil’s nervous voice is back in his ear.

“Say something?” 

“That’s… holy shit, Phil, that’s brilliant!” And now that it’s hit him, Dan feels hysterical giddiness building within his entire body, probably not helped by the three glasses of Prosecco he’s already necked. He laughs, a loud, excitable sound, and Phil’s own relieved giggle matches him.

“Thank God. I don’t think I could get a refund at this short notice.”

“Wait, when are you arriving?” Dan asks, leaning further over the balcony to feel the chill wind against his heated cheeks. 

“Next Thursday. It was the cheapest flight I could find.”

“Shit, mate, you’re nothing if not impulsive. And when do you fly back?”

“Well. That’s the other thing. I’ve not bought a return ticket yet.”

The slow, dopey smirk slides up Dan’s face before he can stop it. He tries to keep his voice casual even as his heart beats erratically in his throat. “And I don’t suppose you’ve booked a hotel either, have you?”

Phil chuckles, a deep, knowing sound right in his ear that brings Dan out in goosebumps. “I’m not very organised. I guess I’ll just have to hope Martyn’s spare room is free.”

“I’ve got half a bed that I’ll rent out for a very reasonable rate if you fancy it. I’ll even chuck in some freshly washed sheets at half price.”

“What a steal! I can hardly turn down an offer like that, can I?” 

Dan grins, bites his lip, gazes out at the city in front of him as he listens to Phil babble excitedly about all the things he wants to see while he’s there. There _are_ stars in London, it turns out - faint and far between, but definitely there. Dan had never noticed them before tonight. 

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done! it's finally done!! thank you SO MUCH to everyone that's read this from the start, thank you to anyone that's left a kind comment or a kudos or has reblogged it on tumblr, it really means so much and it's been such a great start to getting back into writing :) now onto the next project!!
> 
> please do come say hi on tumblr if you'd like, i'd love to meet more of you!! [@strawberry-sunflower](https://strawberry-sunflower.tumblr.com/)


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